SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The past week has been a devastating one for many families. Zubeidat Tsarnaev's is one of them.

But the mother of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings remains resolute in her belief that her sons were not involved in the attack.

She told CNN's Nick Paton Walsh in Makhachkala, Dagestan, that she believes the tragedy that killed three people and injured dozens more was staged and that the bombing was fake.

Boston bombing suspects: The Dagestan connection

Zubeidat Tsarnaev has seen a video supporting the idea that it was "something like a really big play," she said, with "paint instead of blood like it is made-up."

Does she really believe that?

"That's what I want to know, because everybody's talking about it: that this is a show, that's what I want to know. That's what I want to understand," replied Tsarnaev.

Paton Walsh asked whether she had seen the news images of the actual bombings and the suffering they caused.

"I haven't," she answered.

But her disbelief wavered when she spoke of the victims.

Suspects' mother says bombing was staged with paint instead of blood

"I really feel sorry for all of them. Really feel sorry for all of them," she said, her voice cracking. But she is convinced that her sons, Dzhokhar, 19, and Tamerlan, 26, were not involved.

"There is something wrong," she said as she sought to articulate her confusion.

The elder son was killed after the two allegedly violently resisted and fled police.

Tamerlan's body remains unclaimed. Dzhokhar is hospitalized with severe injuries and faces terrorism and murder charges.

His mother said at a news conference Thursday that authorities "already told us they will not let us see Dzhokhar."

'I have nothing'

She broke down in sobs as she tried to describe her torment as a "loving mother of two kids" faced with the events of the past week.

"This is really crazy. I can't even, I can't even describe it," she told Paton Walsh, looking drained. "I have no strength. I have nothing. I have no sleep. I am just like dead. Like a dead person."

Her husband, Anzor Tsarnaev, said Thursday that he expected to fly soon from Dagestan to the United States.

But those plans may be in limbo after Zubeidat Tsarnaev said she'd called an ambulance Thursday to take her husband to a hospital in Makhachkala. It was not immediately known whether Anzor Tsarnaev was ever admitted to a hospital and, if so, if he is still there.

If he ever makes it to the United States, his wife is not expected to be with him.

Zubeidat Tsarnaev is wanted on 2012 felony charges of shoplifting and property damage in Massachusetts, according to court officials.

The family lived there before she jumped bail, and they moved the same year to Dagestan, a semi-autonomous region of Russia, officials said.

She told Paton Walsh that she would like to travel to the United States. "I really want to see how it is going to end," she said. "I want to see my Tamerlan, if it's possible."

Keys to Boston attack could lie half a world away in restive region of Russia

The felony charges weren't "a big deal" and are unimportant to her, she said.

"What I care about is only the death of my oldest son, who I think was killed, and my youngest one, who is really ... needs the support."

U.S. officials had shown her and her husband "pictures of dead body of Tamerlan," she said at the news conference. "I did not look. I could not believe it is my son."

The shoplifting arrest isn't the first time Zubeidat Tsarnaev has been eyed by U.S. authorities.

Russia raised concerns to U.S. authorities about her in 2011 at the same time they asked the United States about her son Tamerlan, several sources told CNN.

U.S. authorities added both the mother and son to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, database -- a collection of more than a half million names maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, an intelligence official said.

FBI agents interviewed Zubeidat Tsarnaev as part of its investigation into her son, whose case was closed after several months.

'Because they were Muslim'

On Wednesday, FBI agents were in Makhachkala -- a city that Tamerlan Tsarnaev called home for several months in 2012 -- to talk with the suspects' parents.

The conversation, which included members of Russia's federal security service, ended Wednesday evening, the suspects' mother told Saratova.

Both parents have publicly said they believe their children are innocent and were framed: "just because they were Muslim," as Zubeidat Tsarnaev put it.

When asked whether she thinks her younger son will get a fair trial, she replied, "Only Allah will know."

The Tsarnaevs are originally from the troubled Russian republic of Chechnya but fled from the brutal wars there in the 1990s. The two brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan and then lived in Dagestan and moved at different times to the United States.

The family's adopted republic has become a focus for investigators, especially given that Tamerlan Tsarnaev went there during a six-month trip to Russia last year.

On two occasions before that -- in March and late September 2011 -- Russian authorities asked U.S authorities to investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Zubeidat Tsarnaev said the FBI had visited her family "several times" in 2011 with questions about Tamerlan's "Islamic interests."

"They said that they ... just think that Tamerlan is a kind of ... little on radical side of Islam and they just don't want ... they are keeping their eye on, you know, the boys, like young boys like Tamerlan so any bombing any like explosion won't happen in America. On the streets, like on the streets."

The FBI investigators told her there was nothing wrong with that, they just wanted everyone to be safe, she said.

Tsarnaev case raises questions about post 9/11

The Tsarnaevs and Misha

A friend named Misha, whom Tamerlan met in the United States, steered the older suspect toward a more devout practice of Islam, Tamerlan's relatives have said.

"Tamerlan was close friends with him, so they think that Misha made him ... become more deeply religious," Zubeidat said.

She was impressed with the Armenian convert to Islam, who seemed "very intelligent, nothing wrong." He suggested that she cover her hair with a scarf, which she did.

"When Misha visited us ... he just opened our eyes, you know ... really wide about Islam. He was really, he's devoted, and he's very good, very nice man," Zubeidat Tsarnaev said.

Friend "brainwashed" bombing suspect, uncle says

Tamerlan's uncle Ruslan Tsarni had a less favorable opinion.

"This person just took his brain," he said. "He just brainwashed him completely."

Tamerlan, a former Golden Gloves boxer, left the ring and stopped listening to music under Misha's influence.

Elmirza Khozhgov, a former brother-in-law of the brothers, said the elder Tsarnaev brother introduced him to a man named Misha, but "I didn't witness him making him radical."

Zubeidat declined to be drawn on which mosques her son frequented, saying he went to any mosque he could go to. Media reports have focused on the Kotrova mosque in Makhachkala.

And she vehemently denied reports that Tamerlan had sent her text messages talking about the radical nature of his faith and that he was ready to die for Islam.

But, she said, he was always in her thoughts.

"I remember him always, always from the first day that he was born, there was no day that I don't remember him. ... He was the most caring son," she said.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: CNN

SHAFAQNA-- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says military action against Iran will be the Zionist regime’s last mistake

“The US and the Zionist regime’s threats have no value and at the same time, show their aggressive nature, and reveal their deceitful and misleading claims,” Vahidi said on Wednesday. 

He reiterated Iran’s complete readiness to give a swift response to any military aggression against the country. 

Vahidi advised US authorities to try and solve the problems in their own country instead of making warmongering remarks. 

The Iranian Defense Minister made the remarks after US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel supported the Tel Aviv regime’s warmongering rhetoric against the Islamic Republic on April 21, saying Washington and Israel see “exactly the same” threat from Tehran. 

Vahidi said the United States issues inhuman threats while proudly donating weapons and funds to the criminal regime of Israel, which is notorious for killings and terrorist actions. 

On April 16, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee adopted "Senate Resolution 65," according to which the US will provide the Israeli regime with diplomatic, economic and military assistance if Tel Aviv decides to launch an attack against Iran. 

Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Benny Gantz said earlier on the same day that, "We have our plans and forecasts.... If the time comes, we'll decide" on whether to take military action against Iran. 

The US, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program, with the Israeli regime repeatedly threatening to attack Iran's nuclear facilities based on the unfounded allegation. 

Iran has rejected the allegations and warned that any military action could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.

www.en.shafaqna.com

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Canadian authorities say they have arrested and charged two men with an al Qaeda-linked plot to "carry out a terrorist attack" against a passenger train.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Monday named the two accused as Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, from the Montreal and Toronto areas respectively.

"The RCMP is alleging that Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser were conspiring to carry out an al-Qaeda-supported attack against a VIA passenger train," RCMP official James Malizia said.

"While the RCMP believed that these individuals had the capacity and intent to carry out these criminal acts, there was no imminent threat to the general public, rail employees, train passengers or infrastructure," the police said in a statement.

The police told a news conference the suspects "were receiving support from al-Qaeda elements located in Iran" but added "there's no indication that these attacks were state-sponsored".

The pair, who are not Canadian citizens, were expected to appear in court in Toronto on Tuesday for a bail hearing.

No Boston links

Charges include conspiring to carry out an attack and conspiring in association with a terrorist group to murder individuals.

Officials in Washington and Toronto said there were no connections to last week's bombings at the marathon in Boston.

Canadian police and intelligence agencies said the operation to foil the plot was conducted in co-ordination with the US Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The arrests raised questions about Iran's relationship with al-Qaeda.

Last autumn, the US administration offered up to $12m in rewards for information leading to the capture of two al-Qaeda leaders based in Iran.

The State Department described them as key facilitators in sending fighters to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations, said the group was not operating in Iran.

"Iran's position against this group is very clear and well known. [Al-Qaeda] has no possibility to do any activity inside Iran or conduct any operation abroad from Iran's territory,'' Miryousefi said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press late on Monday. "We reject strongly and categorically any connection to this story."

A spokeswoman for the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique near Montreal confirmed that Esseghaier was a doctoral student at the research institute and that he had been arrested.

Julie Martineau, the school's director of communications, said Esseghaier arrived at the school in 2010 and was about midway through his degree.

"He is doing a PhD in the field of energy and materials sciences," she told Reuters.

In 2006, Canadian authorities arrested at least 18 suspects reportedly linked to a terror plot, involving attacks on the parliament and a major broadcast company.-www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) The two men suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings were armed with a small arsenal of guns, ammunition and explosives when they first confronted the police early Friday, and were most likely planning more attacks, the authorities said Sunday.

United States officials said they were increasingly certain that the two suspects had acted on their own, but were looking for any hints that someone had trained or inspired them. The F.B.I. is broadening its global investigation in search of a motive and pressing the Russian government for more details about a Russian request to the F.B.I. in 2011 about one of the suspects’ possible links to extremist groups, a senior United States official said Sunday.

New details about the suspects, their alleged plot and the widening inquiry emerged on Sunday, including the types of weapons that were used and the bomb design’s link to a terrorist manual. Lawmakers also accused the F.B.I. of an intelligence failure, questioning whether the bureau had responded forcefully enough to Russia’s warnings.

The surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, remained in a Boston hospital in serious condition. The authorities said they believed that he had tried to kill himself, because a gunshot wound to his neck “had the appearance of a close-range, self-inflicted style,” the senior United States official said.

As investigators intensified their search for clues, the investigation’s focus shifted in the last two days from a manhunt that relied heavily on cutting-edge surveillance technology to help track down the suspects to more traditional investigative methods. Those approaches include interviews with friends, relatives and others who knew the suspects and examinations of computers, phones, writings and their possessions.

More details of what the authorities said was the original plot were becoming clearer. The Boston police commissioner, Edward Davis, said the authorities believed that Mr. Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, 26, had planned more attacks beyond the bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, which killed three people and wounded more than 170. When the suspects seized a Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle and held the driver hostage, they told him that they planned to head to New York, the senior United States official said Sunday.

It was not clear whether the suspects had told the driver what they planned to do there.

Mr. Davis told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday: “We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene — the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded and the firepower that they had — that they were going to attack other individuals.”

Along with determining that the suspects had made at least five pipe bombs, the authorities recovered four firearms that they believe the suspects used, according to a law enforcement official. The authorities found an M-4 carbine rifle — a weapon similar to ones used by American forces in Afghanistan — on the boat where the younger suspect was found Friday night in Watertown, Mass., 10 miles west of Boston.

Two handguns and a BB gun that the authorities believe the brothers used in an earlier shootout with officers in Watertown were also recovered, said one official briefed on the investigation. The authorities said they believe the suspects had fired roughly 80 rounds in that shootout, in which Tamerlan Tsarnaev was fatally wounded, the official said.

Among the unanswered questions facing investigators are where the suspects acquired their weapons and explosives, how they got the money to pay for them, and whether others helped plan and carry out the attack last Monday.  Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston said he believed the brothers were not affiliated with a larger network.  “All of the information that I have, they acted alone, these two individuals, the brothers,” he said on ABC News’s “This Week.”

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SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) In the first major break in the hunt for the Boston Marathon bomber, F.B.I. personnel on Wednesday found security video clips that showed a man they believe may have played a role in planting the explosives that killed three people and injured more than 170 on Monday.

The videos also showed at least a handful of others whom the authorities want to question, either because of what they appear to be doing in the video or their proximity to the blasts, a senior law enforcement official said.

The official said the authorities were trying to boil down the number of people of interest in the videos and would then decide whether to ask the public’s help in locating them.

“It’s a crowd, there are a lot of different angles. It is not like some television-produced video — there’s a lot that isn’t clear,” said the official. “But most interpretations support the notion that one man is seen dropping a bag.”

The official added: “There are several videos with people in them, and we’re looking to talk to more than one guy. It’s still very squishy but there are a lot of interesting people” the authorities want to talk to.

As word spread of the videos Wednesday afternoon, officials emphatically denied a flurry of news reports that they had made an arrest. The F.B.I. was still “looking for a name to put with a face in a video,” one law enforcement official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Those denials did not deter hundreds of office workers and reporters from gathering outside the federal courthouse, where they anticipated that a suspect would be arraigned. A midday bomb scare caused the courthouse to be evacuated and created confusion as the crowds were moved far away from the building and it was ringed by police vehicles. By nightfall, no arrest had taken place.

At Copley Square, the crime scene, several blocks long, remained barricaded as investigators in white hazmat suits scoured the buildings and roofs for pieces of evidence from the two explosions, which occurred at 2:50 Monday afternoon near the finish line of the marathon.

Teams of investigators, including more than 1,000 F.B.I. agents, were tracking possible leads developed on Tuesday after they had discovered remnants from the two bombs.

Those remnants included: parts of one or two kitchen pressure cookers that had evidently been packed with nails, ball bearings and black powder and used as explosive devices; the torn remains of a dark nylon backpack or duffel bag in which one of the bombs had been hidden; and a circuit board, wires and other parts from timing devices. Investigators hoped to track the items back to where they were sold and compile a list of names or descriptions of the buyers.

A piece of the lid of one of the pressure cookers was found on a rooftop near the blast, a law enforcement official said on Wednesday — giving a sense of the tremendous force of the explosion.

The possible break in the case came as investigators scrutinized scores of videos and photographs from surveillance cameras from nearby businesses, as well as from marathon spectators’ smartphones and television crews that were filming the Boston Marathon when the deadly blasts went off. So far, no one has taken responsibility for the explosions.

As the investigation went into a third day, there were signs of jitters around the nation, which was on high alert. New York City officials said there had been an increase in reports of suspicious packages. In Oklahoma City, the scene of a devastating bombing in 1995, City Hall was briefly evacuated Wednesday morning as the authorities examined a stolen rental truck that was parked outside. (There was no bomb, officials there said.)

In Washington, parts of two Senate office buildings were shut down as officials investigated reports of suspicious letters or packages, and the Secret Service said that a letter addressed to President Obama contained a suspicious substance. It was intercepted at a screening facility outside the White House, and federal agents arrested a suspect on Wednesday evening.

The police in New York received 143 reports of suspicious packages between Monday afternoon, just after the Boston explosions, and midnight on Tuesday. This was an increase of more than 300 percent over a similar time period last year, said Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner.

And in Boston, the John Joseph Moakley United States Court House was evacuated in the afternoon as officials called out “code red” and bomb-sniffing dogs were sent inside.

The courthouse was swarming with scores of journalists from around the world, who had flocked there because of rumors — reported early Wednesday afternoon by several news organizations but forcefully denied by the F.B.I. and the Boston Police Department — that an arrest had been made in the case or was imminent.

One of those evacuated, Dave Greenup, 58, who works at a restaurant inside the courthouse, reflected the anxiety caused by the bombings. “For the past couple days, I have been in a daze,” he said. “All of a sudden, we get this evacuation thing. Every time we turn around now, there’s something. I was really hoping they caught somebody. You want closure.”

Court employees were allowed back into the courthouse at 4:15 p.m. No bomb was found there.

Boston prepared to mourn the victims at an interfaith church service on Thursday morning at the Cathedral of Holy Cross. President Obama and his wife, Michelle, were scheduled to attend.

The three people killed in the blasts represented a cross-section of Boston, brought together seemingly at random to watch one of the city’s proud traditions, the 117th marathon. There was Lu Lingzi, 23, from China, a graduate student at Boston University and one of the thousands of international students drawn to the area’s universities. There was Martin Richard, a vivacious 8-year-old third grader from a well-loved family in Dorchester, a tightknit community. And there was Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, Mass., a woman known for her sense of humor who had started working at restaurants as a waitress in high school and worked as a restaurant manager.

If investigators in Boston can find a facial image of sufficient quality from the videos, it could provide a powerful lead.

The F.B.I. has been working for several years to create a facial recognition program, and the video of a suspect or suspects could be matched against the bureau’s database of mug shots of about 12 million people who have been arrested, officials said.

If there is no match, investigators can hunt for the suspects’ images in the voluminous videos and photographs from the bombing site that were submitted by members of the public in response to an F.B.I. appeal. That is still a technically difficult task, because the software is most accurate with head-on facial images and can be thrown off even by a smile, specialists said on Wednesday.

Still, “it’s vastly superior to just watching the video,” said Al Shipp, chief executive of 3VR Inc., a company that sells video analytics software. “You can sort through years of video in seconds. That’s the game changer.”

By piecing together more images of suspects and their movements, the F.B.I. might be able to come up with a name. Even without a name, Mr. Shipp said, investigators could program multiple cameras at airports and elsewhere with the suspects’ images so the cameras would send an alert to them if someone resembling a suspect passed by.

While investigators have focused on the images of the possible suspect, they are continuing to pursue a broad range of other avenues, one law enforcement official said.

“We try not to get tunnel vision about it,” the official said, adding, “we’re working a lot of other possibilities.”

The process, the official said, can be a painstaking one. Once an image like that of a potential suspect is identified, investigators and analysts will seek to track the person in the image, both back in time and forward, seeking other images — photographs and videos — from other sources, looking for different angles and lighting.

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SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The explosions that ripped through the finish line of the Boston marathon on Monday, killing at least two and injuring scores more, rattled an entire country.

But sporting events around the world have a long history as targets for violence. Many of the attacks have been labeled acts of terrorism, even as President Barack Obama notably avoided such language in speaking about the Boston Marathon attack on Monday night.

A list of some of the more notable attacks on sporting events:

1972 Munich Olympics

During the 1972 Munich Games, the Palestinian militant group called Black September took the Israeli national team hostage, eventually killing 11 athletes and coaches and one West German police officer.

On September 5, 1972, eight Palestinian militants invaded Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli team and kidnapped nine others, according to several accounts.

After a day of failed negotiations, the captors demanded transportation for them and their hostages to Cairo, Egypt. The Germans agreed to provide the flights, all the while planning a rescue attempt. It was during that attempt that the remaining hostages were killed, as well as the German police officer. Five Palestinians also died.

1996 Atlanta Olympics

At 1:20 am on July 27, 1996—eight days after that year’s Summer Olympics opening ceremonies—a bomb ripped through Centennial Olympic Park, a public entertainment venue in Atlanta, Georgia. Two people died and over a hundred were injured in the blast.

Eric Rudolph, a former explosives expert for the United States Army, confessed to placing the bomb in front of a video screen in the park. He called in to 911 twice before the bomb was scheduled to go off to warn officials about the bomb, according to an interview in Sports Illustrated.

"The plan was to clear the park, and hopefully after clearing the park and the explosion, this would create a state of instability in Atlanta, potentially shut the Games down or at least eat into the profits that the Games were going to make,” Randolph said in the article. “The idea was to use them as warning devices, not to target people. ... In retrospect, it was a poor decision.”

Rudolph was caught in 2003 and is currently serving four life terms, without the possibility of parole, at a Colorado prison.

2002 Madrid Soccer Bombing

On May 1, 2002 a car bomb exploded near Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Spain, just hours before Real Madrid was to play Barcelona in the European Champions League final.

A second car bomb exploded a half hour later about one mile (1.6 kilometers) away.

Basque separatist group ETA took responsibility for the attack, which injured 17 people.

Officials went ahead with the game, in which an estimated 75,000 people showed up to cheer for their teams, according to a report on CNN.

2008 Sri Lanka Marathon

On April 6, 2008, a suicide bomber detonated a device at the start of a Sri Lankan marathon in Waliweriaya (map), killing at least 15 people, including highway minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, according to reports in The New York Times.

The attack, blamed on the rebel group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also injured almost 100 people.

2010 World Cup fans attacked in Uganda

At 10:30 p.m. (local time) on July 11, 2010, at least three bombs exploded inKampala, Uganda (map), near where people were watching a World Cup soccer match between Spain and the Netherlands.

According to The New York Times, at least 50 people were killed in attacks that targeted a restaurant and a large rugby field.

The Washington Post reported that militant Somali group al-Shabab, linked to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attacks.

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SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) At least 16 people have been killed as two car bombs exploded outside the law courts in Somalia's capital Mogadishu and gunmen stormed the building, before a gunbattle erupted with security forces besieging the compound, witnesses said.

Hours after the attack at the court on Sunday, a large blast hit an area near Mogadishu airport, residents said.

"Armed men entered the court and then we heard a blast. Then they started opening fire. We do not know the number of casualties," said Hussein Ali, who works at the courts.

Somali forces arrived and besieged the court compound and there was a second blast while shots continued to ring out.

Reuters reporters counted 16 bodies, some of them in uniform, some not, around the compound, but it was not clear how many of them were government soldiers, attackers, or civilians.

Hours later, a car bomb exploded at a building housing Somali intelligence along the road to the airport as Turkish and African Union (AU) vehicles were passing, police and witnesses said.

Government forces then opened fire and blocked the road.

"The car bomb exploded near the gate of a building housing the Somali security. AU and Turkish cars were also passing there. We are still investigating the target and casualties," Qadar Ali, a police officer told Reuters.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attacks, but al-Shabab fighters linked to al-Qaeda have claimed responsibility for a number of suicide bombings in Mogadishu this year.

Last month at least 10 people were killed by a car bomb claimed by al-Shabab in Mogadishu, police said.

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SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association)  Iran’s Ambassador to France Ali Ahani has warned against any military attack against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, saying such aggression may lead to World War III.

“A potential Israeli attack against Iran with an objective of destroying its scientific and nuclear facilities is sheer madness. Its consequences are disastrous and uncontrollable,” Ahani said, Fars news agency reported. 

“Iran will not stand idly by in the face of such aggression. This can entail a chain of violence that may lead to World War III,” the Iranian envoy warned.

Ahani said that according to Resolution 533 of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN Security Council must react firmly against any threats on nuclear facilities, adding that certain entities apparently want to ignore this issue. 

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have falsely accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program, with Washington and Tel Aviv repeatedly threatening Tehran with a military strike. 

The US and European Union have also used the unfounded allegation as an excuse to impose illegal sanctions against Tehran. 

Iran has categorically rejected the allegation, noting that as a committed member of the IAEA and a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association)  Iran’s Ambassador to France Ali Ahani has warned against any military attack against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, saying such aggression may lead to World War III.

“A potential Israeli attack against Iran with an objective of destroying its scientific and nuclear facilities is sheer madness. Its consequences are disastrous and uncontrollable,” Ahani said, Fars news agency reported. 

“Iran will not stand idly by in the face of such aggression. This can entail a chain of violence that may lead to World War III,” the Iranian envoy warned.

Ahani said that according to Resolution 533 of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN Security Council must react firmly against any threats on nuclear facilities, adding that certain entities apparently want to ignore this issue. 

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have falsely accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program, with Washington and Tel Aviv repeatedly threatening Tehran with a military strike. 

The US and European Union have also used the unfounded allegation as an excuse to impose illegal sanctions against Tehran. 

Iran has categorically rejected the allegation, noting that as a committed member of the IAEA and a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – At least three people have been injured after Jordanian police attacked a pro-reform demonstration in the northern city of Irbid.

Witnesses say police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators who were calling for political and economic reforms in the kingdom on Friday.

Pro-reform rally in Irbid comes almost two weeks after Jordan’s smallest government in four decades, led by Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, took office.

Jordanians have been holding street protests demanding political reforms, including the election of the prime minister by popular vote, and an end to corruption, since January 2011. Currently the king appoints the prime minister.

Since the beginning of protests, Jordanian ruler, King Abdullah II, has sacked four prime ministers in a bid to avoid more protests. Ensour is Jordan's fifth premier in two years.

Jordanians, however, say Ensour, who claims to be a reformist, will not introduce real reforms and that his government will be a failure just like past governments.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Irib