Check out my previous report about the evidence that Osama Bin Laden is in Iran. It’s possible that he travels to Pakistan, although I think that’d be an unnecessary risk for both parties, but there’s actually more eyewitness testimony placing Bin Laden in Iran over the years than in Pakistan. Also check out another detailed report I made by clicking here.

Now, Ken Timmerman, the best journalist covering Iran, has interviewed Mohsen Makhmalbaf, “a prominent Iranian film maker who has become a key spokesman for the Green Movement.” During their talk, Timmerman asked him if he had any information about Bin Laden possibly being in Iran.

“Osama bin Laden is living in Iran,” he said. “There is absolutely no doubt about this. According to our information, he is probably living in a government guest house near Karaj,” a town just northwest of Tehran that is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards.

Makhmalbaf says he personally saw Al-Qaeda members crossing into Iran in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks near Zabol. He also said that opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi told him that in 2006, he went on a tour arranged for top regime officials to an Al-Qaeda camp near Karaj, the same location Makhmalbaf says Osama himself is.

According to Makhmalbaf, Mousavi said there were about 120 members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban there, and they had gone on strike over their anger over the meat they were being fed. “They were half prisoners, half guests,” Makhmalbaf said.

This story lines up neatly with what Bin Laden’s son has said about members of his family being held against their will in Iran, and the other information about Osama himself being constantly escorted by the Revolutionary Guards. They are giving safe harbor, but this dependency has led to a certain level of control.

Makhmalbaf’s identification of Karaj is substantiated by two former Iranian intelligence officers who claimed to have personally seen Bin Laden in Iran when they talked to author Richard Miniter for his 2004 book, Shadow War. They did not ask for money and the one provided intelligence that saved American lives. They also said that Bin Laden was being brought between Qazvin and Karaj by the Revolutionary Guards.

This is all compelling information, but remember, it’s obviously false because Bin Laden is Sunni and the Iranian regime is Shiite. Can you tell I’m frustrated that people still believe that?

On the 31^st anniversary of the coming to power of the current Iranian regime, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have successfully used unprecedented measures to make some Western media outlets lose faith in the opposition’s fight for freedom and democracy.

TIME Magazine asks, “Where was the opposition?” The Daily Mail has run a report quoting a protestor declaring February 11 a day of victory for the regime and detailing the failure of the Green Movement to mobilize. The Los Angeles Times says the pro-regime rally “overshadow[ed]” the opposition that “failed to derail” the regime’s agenda for the day.

From these articles, you’d think that the Green Revolution had fizzled and was on its way out. Reports from Iranians, though, paint a more hopeful picture of continued resistance in the face of security measures nearly insurmountable without active Western support.

Planet-Iran’s live-blogging revealed that overnight in Tehran and in the morning in Tabriz, demonstrators disabled P.A. systems and loudspeakers set up by the regime to drown out their chants with pro-regime propaganda. A bus carrying members of the Basiji to Tehran was set ablaze, resulting in a violent battle.  Despite the huge security presence, helmets and motorcycles belonging to the suppressive forces were seen on fire. Molotov cocktails were thrown in Golestan Province and Khamenei’s photo was burned in Shiraz. At one time, about 10,000 Iranians in Tehran gathered and marched towards Evin Prison, the notorious torture house reserved for the worst political prisoners. Other video of the demonstrations that TIME and other outlets missed can be seen at the Wall Street Journal website and the Homylafayette blog. One video even shows the demonstrators emerging victorious from a clash with the attacking security forces.

The regime’s measures to discredit the opposition are actually a testament to the movement’s strength. Tanks, armored personnel vehicles, and two water cannons imported from China had to be stationed to protect the Iranian Broadcasting Network T.V. station from being seized, as crowds of Iranians have marched towards it frequently in the past. Many posters of Khomeini, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad were removed so that they wouldn’t be seen getting burnt and ripped apart.

Mousavi, Karroubi, and Mousavi’s wife were assaulted when they tried to join the protestors. The Internet was dramatically slowed down and some e-mail communication was blocked as the regime moves to start a government-controlled service. Cell phones went dead and social networking sites were blocked. Some people reported receiving phone calls directly from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security warning that they were being monitored and would be arrested if they protested. One interesting account I received from Iran shows the regime’s paranoia and/or an act of subtle disobedience by the pro-regime forces. Security personnel carrying an Iranian flag measuring between 300 and 400 meters long were attacked by other security forces because only the green part of the flag could be seen.

A key part of the regime’s effort to demoralize the opposition and make the West think their momentum has been lost was to stage a massive pro-regime rally. This rally should not be seen as evidence of the government’s enduring strength, but of a desperate measure to maintain some level of confidence on the part of the regime’s dwindling proponents. Foreign reporters were bussed directly to Azadi Square where Ahmadinejad spoke so they wouldn’t witness the opposition activity in the other areas of Tehran.

Michael Ledeen says that he believed that “the Iranian regime has assembled the largest armed force in history to protect it.” This rally was not an event representative of Iran’s people, but an assembly of the regime’s employees, soldiers and thugs. The Defense Ministry gave those that attended meat, chicken and rice (see video here). Cake, fruit juice, mineral water and lunch were also being distributed at Tehran University to those changing “Death to Sarkozy” and “Death to France.” According to a report I received from inside Iran, school children were recruited to join the marches to expand their numbers and male students at a junior high school in Qods Town were offered a free trip to Qom and extra credit if they attended the rally.

The success of the pro-regime rally means several things. First, that despite having more than enough forces to carry out a massacre, the regime did not. They either felt it was unnecessary or not an option because of the popular backlash that would result. Either way, this assembly was a sign of fear, and the reluctance of the regime to take even more brutal measures shows they question the loyalty of their security forces. On the down side, it does mean that the security forces still have not fractured to the point where the regime cannot put together a strong line of defense.

This does not mean that the security forces aren’t becoming weaker, or that they will not collapse if a full-fledged confrontation with the people ensues. Nearly a third of Tehran’s 5,000 police officers have been fired, forcing the regime to bring in 700-900 civilians desperate for food and money during times of exceptionally high instability. The report on this development has several key quotes from police officers. Even those that oppose regime change act with disgust in response to the government’s violence, reflecting how the opposition movement spans across political ideologies.

Officers of the Army and the elite Revolutionary Guards have been arrested for opposing the government’s oppression. During the Ashura protests, security forces from outside the capital had to be brought in, showing that the regime’s loyalists are over-extended. Many of the Revolutionary Guards are said to be conscripts and it is questionable if they’d engage in wholesale massacres. As Ali Alfoneh points out, “The last time regular IRGC personnel were ordered to move against demonstrators was in Qazvin in 1994; the unit in question refused to go.”

Unfortunately, the ability of the regime to block the flow of information and communications and their success in preventing the crowds of demonstrators from merging together means the fight is not over and is becoming more difficult. Luckily for the Iranian people and all those threatened by the regime, a group of Senators know what must be done.

Senator McCain and Lieberman have proposed legislation that would require President Obama to provide a list of officials engaging in human rights abuses within 90 days, allowing their assets to be frozen and other sanctions to be enacted. Senators Brownback and Cornyn have proposed separate legislation that paves the way for the creation of an ambassador-level post for a special envoy for human rights in Iran, the providing of non-violent material to the opposition, and it requires that once a transitional government is formed that the U.S. government establish a plan to support it.

Congress recently approved the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, allowing President Obama to sanction companies providing the regime with petroleum-based products like gasoline, which they are heavily dependent upon imports for. If such sanctions are imposed and the two new pieces of legislation are passed, the opposition’s chances of success will be dramatically improved. There will be debate about how much non-violent material support we can afford to provide with the current deficit, but there can be no greater investment than in the internal overthrow of the current Iranian regime and its replacement with a democracy.

Most Iranians can remember the exact moments in their lives when they discovered that the Ayatollah Khomeini had died. For many Iranians, this was a joyous occasion and the cause of days of partying, drinking champagne and fanciful thinking about the fate of their country.  Schools were closed for forty days, and Iranians abroad remained attached to their television sets wondering if they would touch the soil of their homeland once again. Khomeini’s name was synonymous with the Revolution, the precarious social ambiance and the severe impact that Islamic ideology had on the country.  The root of that influence was now gone.

Khomeini, best known to the rest of the world as the founder of modern Islam, the supporter of the Hostage Crisis and the man who issued a fatwa (death decree) on the head of author Salman Rushdie, represented for the Iranian people a central chapter of their modern history that is both complicated and tragic. In the roughly ten years that he reigned, over 100,000 Iranians were executed. The Iran-Iraq war futilely dragged on for almost a decade, and persecuted Iranians across a multicolored Iranian population wondered what the Revolution had achieved.

Looking back at that time makes it difficult to understand how Islamic Republic leaders are now bringing back a cultish reverence for the Khomeini era. Since the post-election protests, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and likewise, reformist Presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have made serious efforts to revive a faux nostalgia for the late Ayatollah among the opposition.

On the part of the current regime, uniting their modus operandi with that of Khomeini’s gives them a legitimate claim to the Islamic Republic.  Recalling that period reminds Iranians of a time when they were curious to see what the Ayatollah Khomeini could offer them.

For the reformists, who are proposing ‘change,’ they are motivated to do so within the confines of the regime, making respect and support for the Khomeini camp a prerequisite to remain part of and function within the Islamic Republic. As a matter of fact, Mousavi and Karoubi have been quick to use Khomeini’s legacy to strengthen their constituency, alleging that the Ayatollah was a more righteous leader, and that Khamenei’s government has severely deviated from the principles initially set forth.

Besides bearing such resemblances in surnames, Khomeini and Khamenei share similarities beyond the superficial. Both support mass executions, terrorism, and a fundamentalist Islamic ideology. Khomeini was famous for the words, “We do not worship Iran.  We worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.” To spread Islam and its influence was his agenda, not much different from the current regime. So inherent is Khomeini’s role in the Islamic Republic landscape that to eradicate his influence from the movement is to study the establishment of the American government system without George Washington, or better yet, to assess Nazism absent Adolph Hitler.

The cleansing of Khomeini’s image became en vogue under former President Mohammad Khatami, who sought to salvage the late Ayatollah’s bloody reputation and in effect absolve the regime, beginning at its very roots. It is said that Khatami began his campaign to change the then dull and disillusioned mood during his presidency and to purify Iran’s modern history.  It also might have to do with the fact that Khatami and Khomeini were related. Khatami’s brother, Mohammad Reza, is married to Khomeini’s granddaughter, Zahra Eshraghi.

Incidentally, the intricate web of marriages within the handful of regime dynasties does not stop at the Khatami and Khomeini families. Most staggeringly, the fathers of Mousavi and Khamenei are brothers, making them first cousins. The unions demonstrate how far the inner circle of the regime will go to preserve their stronghold.

Under every IRI leader since Khatami, there has been a push to glorify the name and legacy of Khomeini, a move the leaders believe will sustain the Islamic Republic. For the current government it relies on erasing a very recent history, and for the reformists, it means tying themselves to a retrospectively more ‘benevolent’ supreme leader, in order to say that not everything about the Islamic Republic is corrupt; it had its glory days too.

Making such a claim relies entirely on pandering to a population of Iranians under the age of 30, who do not clearly remember Khomeini’s track record. Or maybe they do remember it and choose not to. It is clearly more pleasant to remember a peaceful history rather than one dotted with executions, stonings and lack of human rights. The leaders may take advantage of the people’s yearning for a united Iran, albeit one that chooses to forget its own history and thus remains under the grips of an Islamic Republic.

When Khomeini’s picture was rampantly burned in the streets of Iran in early December during National Students’ Day, many believed that was, at the very least, a clear and overt indication that the unrest was certainly not just over a fraudulent election. More profoundly taken, burning the picture of the founder of the Islamic Republic represented a denunciation of a theocratic regime and a manifestation of a movement pro-secular.

Yet when the government announced that those in violation are deemed “moharreb,” or Enemies (of God), and subsequently blamed Mousavi and Karoubi for instigating the event, the reformist leaders then in turn blamed the government for staging the incident it in order to discredit the opposition as irreverent and sacrilegious. Subsequently, the Green party urged the opposition to carry pictures of Khomeini to demonstrations in reverence and to never burn or disrespect the late Ayatollah again. In the end, Khomeini actually emerged more popular and even more of a central player in the backdrop of the movement.

It is still not clear who was behind the original burning of the pictures, but the more poignant revelation was how radical the Iranian momentum has become. So incendiary was this incident that it triggered a fad across several continents of posting videos of burning Khomeini’s picture. There are dozens of such groups on Facebook and Youtube created for the cause. Groups such as “I burned Khomeini’s picture” on Facebook has almost 2,000 members. There is even a video capturing a “Burning Khomeini’s picture party” that takes place in Europe, that shows a large group of expatriate Iranians burning the Ayatollah’s picture.

These cyber campaigns, seeking to eradicate Khomeini’s legacy, were created in reaction to the regime’s campaign to exalt it. Freedom-seeking Iranians are warning their countrymen of what can happen if Iranians fail to recall history and fall into the trap of the regime once again.

The blast, apparently set off by a remote trigger, left a puzzling mix of clues about why a 50-year-old researcher with no prominent political voice, no published work with military relevance and no declared links to Iran’s nuclear program would be targeted.

State media identified the victim as Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a professor at Tehran University, which has been at the center of recent protests by student opposition supporters. Before the election, pro-reform Web sites published Ali Mohammadi’s name among a list of 240 Tehran University teachers who supported Mousavi.

via Bomb kills Iran nuclear physicist tied to Mousavi – Yahoo! News.

An Iranian cleric close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei says the country's opposition leaders are "enemies of God" who could be executed according to Islamic law.

The statement by Ayatollah Abbas Vaez Tabasi came Tuesday as opposition groups reported the arrests of more activists following Sunday's anti-government protests that left eight people dead.

At least 20 high-profile opposition figures or their associates have been detained since Sunday.

Among them are the brother-in-law of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and the sister of Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. Dubai TV also says its reporter in Tehran has been missing since Sunday....

The solution to the crisis with Iran was visible on December 7, Students Day in that country, which marks the anniversary of 1953 anti-American protests when Vice President Nixon visited after the coup that removed Mossadegh from power. The Iranian people continued their strategy of hijacking pro-regime holidays to express their opposition and demand democratic change. On the days when the regime is supposed to appear strongest, it instead appears weakest.

Liberal Middle East expert Juan Cole marveled at how widespread the anti-government demonstrations were. He described them as being larger than the previous November 4 rallies and only being surpassed by the protests following the “re-election” of Ahmadinejad in June. These crowds were able to form despite the deployment of thousands of security forces known for their brutality, the closing of schools, the detaining of opposition leaders, and attempts to shut down the information flow with the outside world by slowing the Internet to a near halt and stopping foreign journalists from covering the events. Over 20 mothers publicly decrying the loss of their children were even arrested.

The Iranian people and their leaders matched the regime’s viciousness with equal bravery. The regime admits that at least 200 were arrested (and the real number is probably far higher) and former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who challenged Ahmadinejad for the presidency in the rigged election, reacted to attacks on his wife and harassment of him by the Basiji with anger. The exact quote of what Mousavi said varies from report to report, but the general line was, “You’re agents. Do whatever you’ve been ordered to do, kill me, beat me, threaten me.” The 30 or so thugs later left and Mousavi was able to travel home from his offices to meet up with his wife who had been pepper-sprayed. The story is spreading like wildfire and will electrify the opposition.

The Associated Press reported that the protestors “showed an increased boldness, openly breaking the biggest taboo in Iran, burning pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and chanting slogans against him.” According to Juan Cole, the Kurds in Sanandaj and elsewhere joined in, forcing the government to dispatch armored vehicles. Tear gas, intense blasts of water, gunfire, buses and cars with cages attached to detain protestors, steel clubs, knives, bottles and electric batons were all used in an attempt to oppress the people.

Clashes at universities ensued, some of which caused the security forces to retreat. Reports I received from Iranians said that at Tehran’s Somayeh Street, protestors forced Basiji attackers to run away, leaving behind a car and a few motorcycles. At Najaf Abad University, the resistance to attempts by security personnel to arrest protestors forced them to rely on violence just to disperse them. Also at this school, students chanted, “We don’t want nuclear weapons. We are tired of the Leader.” Basiji forces at Amir Kabir University had to leave after students pelted them with stones.

An estimated 6-7,000 security forces entered Tehran University, ruthlessly beating the students who had staged sit-ins and chained themselves to the building. The agents stormed dorms where “Death to Dictatorship” was heard and the students scrambled to shut the lights so they could not be identified. Protestors also hoisted up an Iranian flag with the religious symbolism cut out at a mosque at the university and were attacked. At Valiasr, also in Tehran, a truck driver dropped a shipment of bricks near Engelab Street so the protestors could defend themselves.

The security forces are becoming weaker. The original founder of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Sazegara, who has since become an opposition leader, says that during the November demonstrations, the volunteer Basiji forces failed to show up.

“They had to hire 3,500 people, paying them $400 per day, in order to crack down on the November demonstrations. We have succeeded in destroying the Basij force as it has been known until now. Today, it is only a name,” he told Newsmax.com’s Ken Timmerman.

There are also signs that the loyalty of the most important security forces is faltering. Timmerman reported that on December 5, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander in Tehran had told his soldiers to greet the demonstrators with flowers.

The regime reacted with its usual violence and threats of harsher crackdowns. Ahmadinejad claimed he had proof that the U.S. was trying to stop the appearance of the messianic Hidden Imam from returning in an embarrassing attempt to distract his population. The country’s top prosecutor warned that the government would abandon its previous restraint and hinted at arresting Mousavi.

The Iranian protestors are becoming frustrated with the lack of support from President Obama. A spokesperson for Mousavi’s organization has explicitly asked the U.S. to take the opposition’s side, debunking the argument that doing so is not in the Iranian people’s interest.

The lesson to be learned from the round of nationwide protests that began on December 7 is well-articulated by Iranian dissident Amil Imani:

“Even while continuing to pursue a negotiated resolution of the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program, Obama ought to express Americans’ solidarity with the democratic movement in Iran. The students there, playing on the meaning of Obama’s name in Persian (“he’s with us’’), have been chanting to him: Either you are with us or you are with them. The right choice could not be more obvious.”

Iranian laws about the Web are purposely kept vague. Ahmed Batebi, the dissident who recently escaped Tehran after eight years in prison, told me that “The regime can arrest people and bloggers for any reason precisely because the laws are not clear.”

A journalist in the city of Yazd recently reported several cases of bloggers being shut down or involved in lawsuits due to readers’ comments. And on Nov. 14, local Iranian press reported that a new police unit was formed to fight “insults and the spreading of lies” on the Internet—another phrase which effectively bans any criticism of the regime.

It’s hard to believe in light of this Internet repression, but Iran’s president is himself a blogger. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Personal Memos” is the place where he goes to vent and stay in touch with the common folk. He says he allots himself 15 minutes a week to write on his blog, but admits that at times he exceeds this limit.

via David Keyes: Ahmadinejad, the Blogger – WSJ.com.