The protests and adverse events, in response to the arrest of Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar Naqshbandi son of Maulana Fateh Muhammad Naqshbandi, the emaan of Friday prays at Rask Masque, who also accompanied Maulana Abdullah, emaam of Friday prayers in Paarod area of Sarbaaz and 13 others from the region. They Baloch scholars have been arrested on their way back from Zahedan where they had gone to pursue the issue of Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar’s father’s case. The Baloch scholars and their companions were stopped at Rask check post by Iranian security forces and arrested immediately.

This action was met with reactions of women who had witnessed the incident and informed the public about the arrest of the scholars. Soon the people started to join the protest in bulks and the entire Rask city was in chaos.

According unconfirmed reports the Baloch women who witnessed the arrest of Baloch scholars were later arrested and taken away by Iranian security forces.

There has been reports of similar demonstrations in, Jakigwar region of Sarbaaz by the people.

According to reports the city of Sarbaz is still tense but the security atmosphere prevails over town.

It is to be noted that Iran security forces have arrested and executed several Baloch and Sunni Muslim scholars in bogus charges. Currently hundreds of Baloch are being detained by the Iranian regime. Several credible human rights organisations including the Amnesty International have expressed their concerns about illegal arrests and executions of Sunnis and Baloch by the Iranian Regime.

http://farsi.sunnionline.us/index.php … -ahl-al-sunnah&Itemid=198

Afghanistan has been the greatest illicit opium producer in the entire world, ahead of Burma (Myanmar) and the “Golden Triangle” since 1992, excluding the year 2001. Afghanistan is the main producer of opium in the “Golden Crescent”. Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since U.S. occupation started in 2001. Based on UNODC data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004–2007) than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 92% of the non-pharmaceutical-grade opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords, and drug traffickers. In 2007 the United Nations estimated that half of Afghanistan GDP (Gross Domestic Product) came from illegal drugs production in that country.

The Xianghuamen, owned by Nanjing Ocean Shipping Co Ltd, had been seized on Friday morning in the Gulf of Oman near the south Balochistan port of Chabahar in Iran, the Chinese embassy in Tehran reported on its website.

Izadiyan said the pirates were Somali and that the ship was now on its way to Iran. The Xianghuamen had departed from Shanghai, stopped to unload goods in Singapore, and had been on its way to Imam Khomeini port in southwest Iran, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

Chinese ambassador to Iran Yu Hongyang had demanded that Iran make the safety of the crew a priority, Xinhua reported.

(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones and Zhou Xin; Editing by Andrew Roche)

The multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline is meant to export a daily amount of 21.5 million cubic meters of the Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.

“There appears to be a visible decline in the Pakistani government’s interest in the IP project due to mounting pressure by the United States,” Pakistan’s financial daily Business Recorder quoted officials privy to the deliberations related to the project as saying on Wednesday.

Pakistan’s Petroleum Ministry has indefinitely postponed a visit to Iran by Minister of Petroleum and Natural Resources Asim Hussain that was planned for mid March, after the World Bank approved a $1.09 billion loan for Islamabad on March 20.

The paper cited an official of National Engineering Service Pakistan (NESPAK) that is working on the IP project as saying that the Islamabad government has not yet adopted any measures indicating that it would defer the IP project.

“NESPAK and ILF Germany are still working on the project and the Inter State Gas System, the state-run organization responsible for completing the IP and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, recently deputed two additional mid-level officials in Lahore to enhance the pace of work at the IP project,” he added.

The official noted that the Pakistani government may postpone the tendering of the project due to increasing US pressure, emphasizing that there is no delay on the part of the NESPAK and ILF.

Pakistan is facing a serious energy crisis that has already damaged its economy. The government has failed to rise up to the challenge of addressing the problem in the course of the past four years.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday that Islamabad would go ahead with the IP gas pipeline project, in defiance of US unilateral sanctions against the Iranian energy sector.

Energy-hungry Pakistan is looking to increase its fuel imports from various sources, including Iran, to reduce power shortages that have crippled the country’s industries and shaved percentage points off its GDP growth.
In addition to importing oil from Iran, Islamabad has been in talks with Tehran over the construction of a gas pipeline that will transfer Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.
The multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline aims to export a daily amount of 21.5 million cubic meters (or 7.8 billion cubic meters per year) of the Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.

The maximum daily gas transfer capacity of the 56-inch pipeline, which runs over 900 km of Iran’s soil from Asalouyeh in Bushehr Province to the city of Iranshahr in  Baluchestan Province of Iran, has been estimated at 110 million cubic meters.

The latest bout of sanctions against Iran is hurting that country whose commercial life is being squeezed out as it cannot conduct any dollar-based transactions.

India’s political establishment has not savoured the recent outburst by Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state and chief US negotiator on India’s nuclear deal, who criticised India’s alleged soft stand on Iran. Burns described India’s unwillingness to play along with the US sanctions as a ‘failure’ to realise its potential for global leadership, thus ‘impeding’ the building up of a strategic relationship with the US.

India’s tight-rope walk as it tries to strike a balance between its long-term strategic partnership with the United States and its oil dependency on Iran, is being criticised for breaking international sanctions and not doing enough to pressure Iran.

The cosy ties between New Delhi and Washington after a Cold War-conditioned bilateral relationship may prove to be short-lived if India ignores the US message to the rest of the world: Iran’s nuclear ambitions must be stopped at all costs.

The latest bout of sanctions against Iran is hurting that country whose commercial life is being squeezed out as it cannot conduct any dollar-based transactions.

India’s political establishment has not savoured the recent outburst by Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state and chief US negotiator on India’s nuclear deal, who criticised India’s alleged soft stand on Iran. Burns described India’s unwillingness to play along with the US sanctions as a ‘failure’ to realise its potential for global leadership, thus ‘impeding’ the building up of a strategic relationship with the US.

Indian diplomats say that this criticism ignores India’s own economic and domestic political compulsions: the nation derives some 12 per cent of its oil from Iran. India, Burns reminded, had “many years to find new suppliers”. Washington has suggested that India should, instead, consider importing oil from Saudi Arabia to compensate for the loss of Iranian crude. But many of India’s state-owned refineries are heavily dependent on processing Iranian crude. India will need huge investments if it retrofitted its refineries to other sources.

India’s reluctance to estrange itself from Iran is also based on strategic considerations. In response to China’s presence in Gwadar city of Balochistan port in Pakistan, India is seeking access to Balochistan’s Chabahar port which is being built with Indian assistance and can be linked by rail to Central Asia through Hajigak, a mineral-rich area in Afghanistan where India has obtained mining concessions. Chabahar port will help India maintain strong ties with Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance.

Regional domination

India also believes it would be a strategic mistake to abruptly cut off oil purchases from Iran because China would step in to fill the vacuum left behind by India.

American policymakers see in Tehran a regime that pursues an atomic weapon capacity while also aiding America’s enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and supporting Hezbollah, Hamas and the highly unpopular Syrian regime, besides threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. An Iranian nuclear weapons capacity, many US policymakers fear, could embolden Tehran to pursue an even more aggressive drive for regional domination in the Middle East.

The new US-led sanctions push may put Washington and New Delhi on opposite sides of this critical issue. A falling out over Iran could have repercussions for the budding strategic partnership, and make everything else — from trade to defence cooperation to diplomatic coordination — more difficult, though Delhi and Washington have so far also underlined areas of agreement such as their unity in casting the International Atomic Energy Agency votes, their shared opposition to an Iranian nuclear weapon, etc.

A genuine partnership on the Iran issue should see India nudging the Iranian leadership to tone down its nuclear rhetoric and aspirations, while the West, particularly the US, could learn from Indians on how to deal with the Iranians.

Unfortunately, India’s foreign policy has become lacklustre and is drifting into a state of inaction and passiveness. India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a financial genius, lacks leadership qualities and the vision to make the country’s foreign policy a beacon in world affairs. India’s mediocre foreign policy has flopped because of the leadership’s appeasement of regimes in Myanmar, Pakistan, China, Iran, etc. The latest gaffe by India, which forcibly removed Tibetan demonstrators from Delhi’s streets as visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao was being serenaded during the Brics summit, can hardly vindicate India’s claim as the world’s largest democracy. India wore the ugly mask of a totalitarian country during Hu’s visit.

India wants to be America’s true friend without jeopardising its commercial relations with Iran. But is it possible to play “true friend” to two sworn enemies? In a recent editorial, The Wall Street Journal called New Delhi “the mullahs’ last best friend”, criticising it for casting its lot with Moscow and Beijing “for a handful of rupees”.

India cannot put its head in the sand and stay aloof from things happening around it. It needs to defuse the standoff between Iran and the West, and urge Iran to sit down and talk to the West. Even if it did not succeed, India would have impressed many that it has the resolve and capability to be a world power. India will be taken seriously only if it takes an active interest in world affairs.

 http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/india-s-iranian-dilemma-1.1002259

Oil exports are a crucial part of the Iranian economy

The move would allow the US to take measures against foreign banks that still deal with Iranian oil. Iran is facing international pressure to address concerns over its nuclear enrichment programme.

Western countries suspect Iran of attempting to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran insists the programme is purely peaceful. Mr Obama said in a statement that he would continue to monitor the global market closely to ensure it could handle a reduction of oil purchases from Iran.

The US president was required by a law he signed in December to determine by 31 March whether the market allowed countries to “significantly” cut their purchases from Iran.

‘On notice’

A statement from the White House acknowledged that “a series of production disruptions in South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria and the North Sea have removed oil from the market” in the first months of 2012.

“Nonetheless, there currently appears to be sufficient supply of non-Iranian oil to permit foreign countries to significantly reduce their import of Iranian oil,” the statement says.

“In fact, many purchasers of Iranian crude oil have already reduced their purchases or announced they are in productive discussions with alternative suppliers.”

Under the law signed in December, countries have until 28 June to show they have significantly reduced the amount of crude oil they purchase from Iran or face being cut off from the US financial system.

Earlier this month, the US gave exemptions from the sanctions to Japan and 10 EU countries which have reduced their imports of Iranian oil.

The new measures will put pressure on other heavy importers of Iranian oil such as South Korea, India, China, Turkey and South Africa.

“Today, we put on notice all nations that continue to import petroleum or petroleum products from Iran that they have three months to significantly reduce those purchases or risk the imposition of severe sanctions on their financial institutions,” Senator Bob Menendez, who co-authored the sanctions legislation, told the Associated Press.

This is the latest in a series of gradual moves designed to put pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme.

An EU oil embargo also comes into effect in June.

Turkey announced on Friday that it would be cutting oil imports from Iran by 20%.

US officials have refused to speculate on the likely impact on global oil prices of the latest move.

Correspondents say mounting pressure on Iran to make concessions over its nuclear programme has already been cited as one of the factors behind recent oil price rises, including a sharp rise in the price of petrol in the US.

The BBC’s Mark Mardell in Washington says Friday’s move is a significant tightening of the screw because it means, in theory, that if a company or country tries to buy oil from the Iranian central bank then it could face being cut off from the US banking system.

But, he says, the US has had to make exceptions to countries like Japan, who have already made moves to cut back, reflecting the reliance of countries on Iranian oil.

And other big consumers, he says, like China and India, get round the sanctions by bartering wheat and soybeans for oil.

Source: bbc.co.uk

“By designating the individuals and entities today, Treasury is sending a clear signal to the international community that Iran’s attempts to evade international sanctions will not go unnoticed,” Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.

SADRA has offices in Iran and Venezuela and is owned by Khatam al-Anbiya, which the office has designated as an engineering arm of the Quds Force, the statement said. The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against two shipping companies based in Malta and two shipping officials connected to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.

The shipping lines have “played a key role in Iran’s efforts to advance its missile programs and transport other military cargoes,” the Treasury Department said. The companies and individuals were sanctioned under an executive order freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters, the department said

The sanctions come a day after the United States sanctioned an Iranian airline, three Iranian officials, a trading company and a shipping agent for providing support to the Quds Force. Iran’s secretive Quds Force is the elite special operations unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. The most militant wing of the Guard, Quds has reportedly carried out covert operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq.

The United States has accused it of aiding insurgent groups behind attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jane’s global security site reports.

New Delhi is walking a tightrope.

Trita Parsi, the founder and president of the Washington-based National Iranian Council, assesses India’s diplomatic performance so far and offers a view of how the U.S. can defuse the tension over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Parsi is the author of “A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy With Iran.”

Edited excerpts:

India imports 80% of its petroleum needs and buys $12 billion of Iranian oil annually. How damaging to oil prices is Iran’s saber-rattling?

The U.S. has been trying to get sanctions on Iran and what the Iranians want to do in response is hurt the West. And one of the ways to do that is through saber-rattling that gets oil prices to shoot up. The Iranian government benefits because it’s an oil producer and exporter and the Western countries take a big hit because they are consumers. Obama takes a particularly big hit because higher petrol prices mean higher gas prices. And higher gas prices mean it’s going to be more difficult to create jobs in the United States.

Can OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia make up for the shortfall in Iranian oil production?

I’m not an expert on Saudi oil and their capacity to produce but what is clear is that whatever their capacity is, the markets don’t seem to be convinced and petrol prices are shooting up.

Despite the Iran-Israel standoff, India is pressing ahead with its economic agenda with Tehran. We’re looking at refurbishing the Chabahar port in Western Balochistan Iran and we also managed to find a way around the West’s oil sanctions by making oil payments in rupees. How are these moves being perceived in Washington — who India has great relations with — and in Israel, from whom India buys its arms?

Both Israel and the United States are annoyed that throughout this period, India has managed to keep a neutral position and have good relations with all sides. At the same time India is such an important country that it has become difficult for the United States to increase its pressure on India too much. Obviously there will be some increased pressure but the question is how far the West can go on this issue. I’ve heard that the U.S. will now tell India that they view the relationship with Iran as “offensive” which is a step higher than how it has been viewed in the past.

And how might that impact U.S.-India relations?

The question is how far the U.S. is willing to take this and it seems unlikely that the U.S. is willing to risk a conflict with India over this issue. At the same time how far is India willing to take this? Is India willing to forgo the Iranian market and Iranian energy in order to retain its position with the West? I feel the Indian government’s calculation is that it feels it is completely unfair for the West, and the U.S. in particular, to put India in a position where it has to choose one friend over another. And some of India’s resistance is that it simply refuses to yield into such a pressure that perhaps smaller countries can succumb to, but for a rising power like India, it would be a bit embarrassing.

How are the Israelis viewing India’s position?

The Israelis have far less leverage on the Indians than this. And they have tried for quite some time to turn India, but the relationship that Israel has with India is of such value that it is not going to be sacrificed over a different perspective on Iran. The Israelis would rather put more pressure on the U.S. to put more pressure on India rather than doing it directly.

Indian authorities had earlier refused to implicate Iran for the Feb. 13 bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat’s wife’s car. But now, the investigations in New Delhi are turned towards the Iranians and to people with ties to Iran. Does that change the India-Iran dynamic in the conversation now?

Here’s two things that are happening right now that’s pulling India in different directions. On the one hand, there’s the decision by the Indian police to go after the suspects with warrants (in the Israeli diplomat’s attack case). And it’s a very serious matter for the Indians if Iranians are engaged in terrorism or assassinations on Indian soil. It’s unacceptable to India. It’s saddling them with tensions and works to the advantage of those who want to see Iran-India ties deteriorate. On the other hand, the serious deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s role is causing worry. It’s quite the balancing act for the Indians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. President Obama in Washington this month and said Israel has to be the “master of its own fate.” What options is Israel pursuing right now and how realistic is an Israeli military strike on Iran?

The main option that Israel is hoping for right now is that the United States commits itself or undertakes a military operation against Iran’s nuclear facility. There is an implicit threat that the Israelis would do it themselves. But it’s not a threat that is very credible because the Israelis have been making it for 10 years. The Israelis could be so foolish to do it themselves but it would have several negative consequences. One being it would really create a lot of tension between the U.S. and Israel because the Israelis are simply not capable of doing it successfully, and as a result in the view of the U.S. it would just matters worse.

It’s striking that the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey and the Secretary of Defense Leon Pannetta seem to think attacking Iran at this point would be a bad idea. So, how does Washington hope to reconcile the differences between what politicians say and what the military thinks is viable?

The American option as President Obama laid out is that they want to continue doing diplomacy (with Iran.) I think that is the right approach. The effort needs to be more dedicated and sustainable than what the Obama administration has managed to muster so far. But the military is really concerned about being rushed into a confrontation with Iran because at the end of the day there really isn’t a military solution to this. Because it’s a very vague operation with very vague objectives, how will you determine whether it has been a success or not? Most likely, the Iranians will reconstitute the nuclear program or probably push more aggressively towards building a weapon. The U.S. military is not keen on the Israeli idea of going and bombing Iran every two or three years. That’s not something the U.S. is interested in… mindful of the tremendous destabilizing impact that would have on the region and on the energy markets.

The West has imposed sanctions on Iran. How effective are they in pushing Iran to come to the table to talk?

I don’t think the sanctions have had much to do with that. Frankly because Iranian offers to come and talk on the 20% (enriched nuclear fuel) issue were already existing last summer.

What the U.S. wants, of course, is that the Iranians would commit themselves to the agenda that the P5-plus-1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) have put together and now it seems the Iranians have done so. The U.S. may think it’s because of sanctions, but the Iranians may feel we have now mastered the 20% enrichment and they’ve built their own fuel pads and as a result they may feel they’re in a stronger position and therefore are ready to negotiate.

The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s loyalists won a majority in the parliamentary elections this month – making Ahmadinejad a lame duck president. Is this victory likely to have any impact on Iran’s foreign policy and help cool oil prices?

I think 2012 is a crucial year. It’s critical to make sure tensions reduce because of the elections cycle (in the U.S. and Israel.) But if we manage to make sure tensions are not increased during this period… there is an opportunity to get this issue resolved diplomatically.

Smriti Rao is a news anchor and producer. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, Ms. Rao has worked with major Indian TV networks including NDTV and Bloomberg’s India affiliate-UTV. Follow her on Twitter @srh2139.

You can follow India Real Time on Twitter @indiarealtime.

The project is slated to go online in 2015.

Egypt was originally meant to be one of the sponsors, but the past year’s instability there made it difficult to secure its commitment. From Wednesday’s announcement, it appears that Iran is taking Egypt’s place.

The $20 million isn’t enough to cover the accelerator project. Another $15 million is being sought from Europe and the United States. The SESAME center will ultimately cost $100 million.

“This announcement is a breakthrough in terms of the financial infrastructure,” said Prof. Eliezer Rabinovici, a physicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has attended SESAME planning meetings.

“SESAME had enough money to build the building to house the accelerator, and to install its first components, which are being donated by the Germans. Now this commitment will enable the purchase of a light source for the accelerator,” he said.

Moshe Vigdor, who heads the Planning and Budgeting Committee of Israel’s Council for Higher Education, said that without this agreement the project would have collapsed.

As for Iran’s involvement, he said, “Science crosses borders and Israel participates in many international scientific forums that include Iran.”

SESAME also includes representatives from the Palestinian Authority, Pakistan, Bahrain and Cyprus.

According to Rabinovici, SESAME’s seeds were sown at a meeting that took place in Dahab, Sinai, three weeks after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Scientists from Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Morocco, as well as Palestinian scientists, were at the meeting.

While terror attacks in the late 1990s moved the working meetings to Europe, work on the project continued, getting a major boost with the donation of a German synchrotron, which will serve as the base for the new accelerator.

Unlike accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, the synchrotron is not based on particle collisions but on the cyclic beaming of electrons within the accelerator. When the electrons are accelerated they radiate, and this radiation can be used for screening in archaeology, physics, life sciences, pharmacology and other fields.

There are 60 such synchrotrons in the world, but none in the Middle East.

The Revolutionary Guards’ Mafia-like network in Europe has grown steadily since Iran’s 1979 revolution, and last year the U.S. government designated Iran as a “Primary Money-Laundering Concern” and imposed new sanctions on Iran’s energy sector.

And on Wednesday, March 8, 2012 the U.S. government named Gen. Gholamreza Baghbani, a general in Iran’s elite Quds force which is a branch of the Guards as a narcotics “kingpin”, citing a career of facilitating heroin trafficking from Afghanistan into Iran.

The Green Experts of Iran report, which is written in Farsi, reveals a grand project by the Guards called a “Time for the Collapse”, and the Guards according to this plan, intend to destabilize the West through terror, drugs and money laundering.

News media have widely reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his power struggle with those loyal to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has talked of many secret ports across Iran that are used by the Guards for smuggling.

About seventeen months ago, the report states, members of a drug gang were arrested in Baku, Azerbaijan and among them were two Iranians that Iran’s consulate shielded from prosecution.

Other members of the gang were citizens of Azerbaijan, Albania and Tajikistan however, and they confessed to their connection to the Revolutionary Guards’ drug network.

In connection with that arrest, the Green Experts report explains, modern counterfeiting equipment was confiscated, along with information that the Guards had placed similar counterfeiting operations on the borders of Russia and across East Asia.

That information, the report states, led to more arrests eleven months ago in Macau, which is an island protectorate of China, an information that was gathered resulted in the seizure of high-quality forged U.S. treasury bonds.

Those bonds, the report said, were already being easily transacted through regional banks, and arousing no suspicion.

The authorities ultimately tracked the forged currency to a criminal network in Europe which was distributing large sums of counterfeit dollars and euros, in collaboration with the Guards, and had been doing so since at least July 2011.

Information from arrests in Europe showed that the Guards and the Iranian intelligence apparatus were involved in a major money-laundering scheme that involved the assistance of Iranian consulates.

The Green Experts report states that an organized crime family in Albania has collaborated with the Guards for years, running a major money-laundering operation that sends fake currency into Europe.

The Guards, it is said, have been successfully recruiting mostly poor Albanians, who are sent to Iran for intelligence and military training, after which they are sent to work for the European network.

Investigations have shown that one center of distribution of phony banknotes is an Iranian-affiliated company in Hong Kong.

The Revolutionary Guards’ illicit activities have expanded throughout Europe, including to England, Germany, France and, in cooperation with Italian Mafiosi, to northern Italy.

Arrests just weeks ago in Zurich, Switzerland also led to confiscation of a a somewhat hard to believe $6 trillion in fake U.S. bonds and the arrests of eight individuals in Italy, and a further $2 billion in fake bonds were also seized in Rome.

Those arrested in that law-enforcement operation were widely reported to have been trained in Iran, were part of the Guards’ smuggling network, and were planning to buy plutonium from Nigerian contacts.

The bonds they were carrying had originally been transported from Hong Kong to Zurich in 2007

On Feb. 21, 2012, Azerbaijan officials announced the arrest of a gang with links to the Revolutionary Guards and the militant terrorist Hezbollah group.

Azerbaijan said.the gang members, who were involved in drug trafficking, were armed with explosives and intended to commit acts of terrorism against foreign nationals,

According to a respected Iraian opposition website called Balatarin, a company belonging to former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rafiqdoust transfers drugs in small packages from Iran via boats and airplanes to Albania, Romania and Bulgaria after which the packages are distributed through Western Europe in trucks belonging to Albanian and Romanian companies.

The same report suggests that the Guards’ drug operation nets $20 billion annually.

A former Guards intelligence officer confirmed this in November, saying that the Guards are trying to undermine the West through their links with global crime networks.

While the trafficking of drugs funds terrorist activities, drug cartels also transport arms and explosives and move terror cells’ personnel from place to place.

And the Guards run the terror cell operation out of Venezuela and into Latin America as a means to enter Mexico and from there into the U.S., according to an April 2010 Pentagon report.

The Guards also use Iranian industries under their control to expand their terrorist activities with one example being the Iran Khodro Company, which is the leading Iranian automaker with many branches outside Iran.

In 2011 a shipment of 286 pounds of heroin was intercepted in Nigeria along with 13 containers of arms and ammunition.

The heroin was hidden in auto parts destined for the Iran Khodro branch in Senegal, which is operated by the Quds Forces.

Green Experts are an opposition group tied to the Green Movement in Iran that opposes the reign of Khamenei.

The movement proposes free elections and the release of Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who are Green movement leaders that have been under house arrest since the 2009 uprisings in Iran.

* For more information on the drug links between Hezbollah and Mexican drug cartels check out Hezbollah Now Linked To Mexican Drug Cartels

The United States imposed sanctions Wednesday on a senior member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Qods Force and designated him as a narcotics trafficker, the first such designation of an Iranian official.Gen. Gholamreza Baghbani, the current chief of the ICRG-QF office in Zahedan, Iranian Balochistan, has allowed Afghan narcotics traffickers to smuggle opiates through his zone of operations in exchange for money, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

Zahedan is located in the southeastern part of Iran in Balochistan near the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistani Balochistan.

“Today’s action exposes IRGC-QF involvement in trafficking narcotics, made doubly reprehensible here because it is done as part of a broader scheme to support terrorism. Treasury will continue exposing narcotics traffickers and terrorist supporters wherever they operate,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen.

Afghan traffickers moved weapons to the Taliban on Baghbani’s behalf in return for the opening of routes in Iran that allowed heroin processing chemicals to come across the Iranian border, the Treasury Department said. Baghbani has also helped facilitate the shipment of opium into Balochistan Iran, the statement said.

Baghbani was designated under the so-called Kingpin Act, which seeks to target the financial networks of significant narcotics traffickers. More than 1,000 individuals have been designated by Treasury through the act since 2000.

All U.S. citizens are prohibited from conducting financial or commercial transactions with Baghbani as a result of the designation, and all of his assets under U.S. jurisdiction are also frozen.

The majority of IUC students are enrolled in Civil Engineering and Architecture program are taught and in Persian, and the tests too, are taken in Persian.

Student participation in the fields other than navigation is strongest in computing and information systems programming, where the language of instruction and examinations is English.

NEW DELHI (AP) – Police arrested an Indian journalist in connection with last month’s bombing of an Israeli diplomatic vehicle in New Delhi, authorities said Wednesday, the first apparent breakthrough in an attack that Israel accused Iran of orchestrating.

FILE - In this Feb. 13, 2012 file photo, Indian police forensics experts investigate the scene after an explosion tore through a car belonging to the Israel Embassy in New Delhi, India. An Indian journalist has been arrested in connection with last month's bomb attack on the vehicle belonging to an Israeli diplomatic in New Delhi, Indian police said Wednesday, March 7, 2012, the first apparent breakthrough in an attack that Israel accused Iran of orchestrating. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer, File)

The Press Trust of India said the suspect had claimed to work for an Iranian news organization, a fact Indian police declined to confirm. Though Indian authorities have not implicated Iran in the bombing, any leads that point in that direction could complicate India’s delicate efforts to ward off growing Western pressure and maintain its strong economic ties with Tehran.

Energy-starved India remains a large market for Iranian oil, and those purchases could blunt the effect of intensified sanctions being imposed by the United States and European Union to force Iran to roll back its nuclear ambitions.

“India finds itself between a rock and a hard place over Iran,” said Arundhati Ghose, a retired Indian diplomat. “It’s a tough call for the government, but one that New Delhi will have to confront eventually.”

Police arrested Syed Mohammed Kazmi on Tuesday after investigations showed he had been in touch with a suspect they believe may have stuck a magnetic bomb on an Israeli diplomat’s car, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.

Police said they searched Kazmi’s house over the past two days to gather evidence that might link him to the Feb. 13 attack, which wounded the diplomat’s wife, her driver and two other people in a nearby car. Police did not say what evidence they found.

Kazmi, 50, was being questioned and was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday before being handed over to officials of the investigating agencies for further questioning, Bhagat said.

The New Delhi blast came the same day a bomb was discovered on an Israeli diplomat’s car in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The next day, three Iranians accidentally blew up their house in Thailand, and Israeli authorities said the similarity between their explosives and the two earlier bombs linked Iran to all three incidents.

Indian officials have refused to assign blame while the investigation continues.

Israel has accused Iran of waging a covert campaign of state terrorism and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

If Kazmi’s arrest and interrogation leads to evidence of Iran’s involvement- either directly or through its proxies- in the New Delhi attack, the fallout could put India in a diplomatic quandary.

Iran is one of India’s major suppliers of oil, accounting for 12 percent of its energy needs.

So far, India has fended off criticism for its growing economic ties with Iran by saying it does not heed unilateral sanctions, such as those being imposed by the United States and European Union.

“We have accepted sanctions that are made by the United Nations,” Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai told reporters in Washington at a recent press briefing. “Other sanctions do not apply to us.”

Western sanctions have made it harder for Indian companies to pay for Iranian oil, with international banks unwilling to handle transactions from Tehran without breaching the new American sanctions on Iran’s financial earnings from oil.

Last month, India and Iran agreed to an arrangement for 45 percent of the $11 billion in annual oil payments to be made in Indian rupees, with the rest to be paid in a barter system.

Tehran is looking to trade oil for Indian-made machinery, iron and steel, minerals and automobiles, while Indian companies plan to invest in infrastructure projects in Iran including developing oil and gas fields, roads and railways.

India brushed off the international outrage over the blasts and said it would go ahead with a visit to Tehran this weekend by an Indian trade delegation headed by the commerce secretary.

“India needs the Iranian crude. It would be very difficult to find alternative sources of oil that would be acceptable to Indian refineries,” a commerce ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Many of India’s aging oil refineries are configured to use Iranian crude oil. Retrofitting these refineries would be costly, the official said.

India is also looking after its strategic interests in Iran’s neighbor Afghanistan, which India hopes to prevent from falling under the sway of its archrival, Pakistan, after the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops.

India uses Iranian ports to send goods to Afghanistan as it scrambles to maintain influence there.

“India is now in a panic over what lies ahead in Afghanistan. The Americans are leaving Afghanistan; they are talking to the Taliban. India will find itself scrambling for access in Afghanistan,” says K.C. Singh, a former Indian ambassador to Iran.

To this end, India is helping develop the southern Iranian port of Chabahar and a rail link that will offer it direct access to Afghanistan.

New Delhi has not remained completely immune to sanction pressures and is slowly easing its dependence on Iranian oil.

Trends show a gradual decline in Iranian oil imports, with a temporary spike in January due to the bunching of earlier supplies that were delayed due to payment hurdles.

India has also developed close ties with Israel after diplomatic relations were established in 1992, and Tel Aviv has emerged as an important arms supplier.

INDIA SAYS it is determined to continue importing oil from Iran despite EU and US sanctions aimed at stopping trade until Tehran stops what the West insists is a military nuclear programme.

Reacting to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s comments that the US was engaging in “very intense and very blunt” conversations with India and others such as China and Turkey to stop oil imports from Iran, New Delhi officials indicated yesterday that they would not be coerced.

India’s finance minister Pranab Mukherjee recently rejected pressure from the Obama administration to join the US-EU led sanctions against Tehran.

India imports about 12 per cent of its oil and gas requirements from Iran for an estimated $12 billion (€9 billion), and maintains it will abide only by UN sanctions and not implement those imposed by individual nations or groupings such as the US and the EU.

India recently used Chabahar port in southeastern Iran for the first time to transport 100,000 metric tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan as part of its humanitarian aid to the war-torn country.

India helped build Chabahar a decade ago to provide access to Afghanistan and central Asia – prohibited over land by neighbouring nuclear rival Pakistan – and is involved in building a 900km rail link from the Zabul iron ore mines in southern Afghanistan to the Iranian port. With Iran and Afghanistan, it has agreed that Indian goods headed for Central Asia and Afghanistan will benefit from tariff discounts at Chabahar.

In addition to its oil needs, India wants to cement ties with a besieged Tehran so as to retain access to Kabul in the run-up to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and to the Asian republics, where there are vast hydrocarbon reserves that could fuel India’s economic development.

Over the past few weeks a defiant India has been examining ways to step up trade with Iran amid trouble in settling its oil bills as sanctions closed down banking routes.

Much to Washington’s ire, New Delhi is sending a large trade delegation to Iran later this month to explore business opportunities created by western sanctions.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Delhi said the Islamic republic offered massive potential for Indian exports: more than $10 billion (€7.5 billion) a year.

“The potential of trade and economic relations between India and Iran can touch $30 billion by 2015 from the current level of $13.7 billion,” association secretary general DS Rawat said.

An Iranian central bank delegation is currently in Delhi to examine options for India to pay for crude imports. It is negotiating to offset a proportion of this bill in exchange for oil-refining machinery, heavy engineering goods and pharmaceuticals, all badly needed in Iran.

Until recently Indian firms were routing payments through Turkey’s Türkiye Halk Bankasi AS, after EU pressure last year forced German-based Europäisch-Iranische Handelsbank AG to stop handling the payments. It remains uncertain how long this arrangement will continue.

WASHINGTON — Should Israel decide to launch a strike on Iran, its pilots would have to fly more than 1,000 miles across unfriendly airspace, refuel in the air en route, fight off Iran’s air defenses, attack multiple underground sites simultaneously — and use at least 100 planes.That is the assessment of American defense officials and military analysts close to the Pentagon, who say that an Israeli attack meant to set back Iran’s nuclear program would be a huge and highly complex operation. They describe it as far different from Israel’s “surgical” strikes on a nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007 and Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.

“All the pundits who talk about ‘Oh, yeah, bomb Iran,’ it ain’t going to be that easy,” said Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, who retired last year as the Air Force’s top intelligence official and who planned the American air campaigns in 2001 in Afghanistan and in the 1991 Gulf War.

Speculation that Israel might attack Iran has intensified in recent months as tensions between the countries have escalated. In a sign of rising American concern, Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Jerusalem on Sunday, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, warned on CNN that an Israeli strike on Iran right now would be “destabilizing.” Similarly, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, told the BBC that attacking Iran would not be “the wise thing” for Israel to do “at this moment.”

But while an Israeli spokesman in Washington, Lior Weintraub, said the country continued to push for tougher sanctions on Iran, he reiterated that Israel, like the United States, “is keeping all options on the table.”

The possible outlines of an Israeli attack have become a source of debate in Washington, where some analysts question whether Israel even has the military capacity to carry it off. One fear is that the United States would be sucked into finishing the job — a task that even with America’s far larger arsenal of aircraft and munitions could still take many weeks, defense analysts said. Another fear is of Iranian retaliation.

“I don’t think you’ll find anyone who’ll say, ‘Here’s how it’s going to be done — handful of planes, over an evening, in and out,’ ” said Andrew R. Hoehn, a former Pentagon official who is now director of the Rand Corporation’s Project Air Force, which does extensive research for the United States Air Force.

Michael V. Hayden, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009, said flatly last month that airstrikes capable of seriously setting back Iran’s nuclear program were “beyond the capacity” of Israel, in part because of the distance that attack aircraft would have to travel and the scale of the task.

Still, a top defense official cautioned in an interview last week that “we don’t have perfect visibility” into Israel’s arsenal, let alone its military calculations. His views were echoed by Anthony H. Cordesman, an influential military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There are a lot of unknowns, there are a lot of potential risks, but Israel may know that those risks aren’t that serious,” he said.

Given that Israel would want to strike Iran’s four major nuclear sites — the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo, the heavy-water reactor at Arak and the yellowcake-conversion plant at Isfahan — military analysts say the first problem is how to get there. There are three potential routes: to the north over Turkey, to the south over Saudi Arabia or taking a central route across Jordan and Iraq.

The route over Iraq would be the most direct and likely, defense analysts say, because Iraq effectively has no air defenses and the United States, after its December withdrawal, no longer has the obligation to defend Iraqi skies. “That was a concern of the Israelis a year ago, that we would come up and intercept their aircraft if the Israelis chose to take a path across Iraq,” said a former defense official who asked for anonymity to discuss secret intelligence.

Assuming that Jordan tolerates the Israeli overflight, the next problem is distance. Israel has American-built F-15I and F-16I fighter jets that can carry bombs to the targets, but their range — depending on altitude, speed and payload — falls far short of the minimum 2,000-mile round trip. That does not include an aircraft’s “loiter time” over a target plus the potential of having to fight off attacks from Iranian missiles and planes. In any possibility, Israel would have to use airborne refueling planes, called tankers, but Israel is not thought to have enough. Scott Johnson, an analyst at the defense consulting firm IHS Jane’s and the leader of a team preparing an online seminar on Israeli strike possibilities on Iran, said that Israel had eight KC-707 American-made tankers, although it is not clear they are all in operation. It is possible, he said, that Israel has reconfigured existing planes into tankers to use in a strike.

Even so, any number of tankers would need to be protected by ever more fighter planes. “So the numbers you need just skyrocket,” Mr. Johnson said. Israel has about 125 F-15Is and F-16Is. One possibility, Mr. Johnson said, would be to fly the tankers as high as 50,000 feet, making them hard for air defenses to hit, and then have them drop down to a lower altitude to meet up with the fighter jets to refuel.

Israel would still need to use its electronic warfare planes to penetrate Iran’s air defenses and jam its radar systems to create a corridor for an attack. Iran’s antiaircraft defenses may be a generation old — in 2010, Russia refused to sell Iran its more advanced S-300 missile system — but they are hardly negligible, military analysts say.

Iranian missiles could force Israeli warplanes to maneuver and dump their munitions before they even reached their targets. Iran could also strike back with missiles that could hit Israel, opening a new war in the Middle East, though some Israeli officials have argued that the consequences would be worse if Iran were to gain a nuclear weapon.

Another major hurdle is Israel’s inventory of bombs capable of penetrating the Natanz facility, believed to be buried under 30 feet of reinforced concrete, and the Fordo site, which is built into a mountain.

Assuming it does not use a nuclear device, Israel has American-made GBU-28 5,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs that could damage such hardened targets, although it is unclear how far down they can go.

Earlier this month, a Bipartisan Policy Center report by Charles S. Robb, the former Democratic senator from Virginia, and Charles F. Wald, a retired Air Force general, recommended that the Obama administration sell Israel 200 enhanced GBU-31 “bunker busters” as well as three advanced refueling planes.

The two said that they were not advocating an Israeli attack, but that the munitions and aircraft were needed to improve Israel’s credibility as it threatens a strike.

Should the United States get involved — or decide to strike on its own — military analysts said that the Pentagon had the ability to launch big strikes with bombers, stealth aircraft and cruise missiles, followed up by drones that could carry out damage assessments to help direct further strikes. Unlike Israel, the United States has plenty of refueling capability. Bombers could fly from Al Udeid air base in Qatar, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean or bases in Britain and the United States.

Nonetheless, defense officials say it would still be tough to penetrate Iran’s deepest facilities with existing American bombs and so are enhancing an existing 30,000-pound “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” that was specifically designed for Iran and North Korea.

“There’s only one superpower in the world that can carry this off,” General Deptula said. “Israel’s great on a selective strike here and there.”