Standoff Over Terror Ruling Is Worsening, The International Herald Tribune, May 2 

BRUSSELS - The European Union engaged in a new round of diplomatic retaliations with Iran on Thursday, urging its members not to send their envoys back to Tehran after the Iranian government moved to block the return of the German and Danish ambassadors.

The worsening diplomatic standoff, backed up by harsh verbal exchanges between Tehran and some EU capitals, dealt a major blow to European attempts to contain the damage to relations caused by a German court ruling that Iran's leaders were responsible for the 1992 murder in Berlin of three exiled dissidents and their translator….

''We don't give a damn about your ending the critical dialogue,'' Mr. Khamenei (the nation's religious leader) said. ''We never sought such a dialogue, and we have more criticism against you than you do against us.''

 

Norway Withdraws Iran's Special Status, Agence France Presse, May 1 

OSLO - Norway will withdraw Iran’s and Burma’s special status for imports from developing countries because of human rights violations, Norwegian Foreign Minister Bjoern Tore Godal said on Thursday….

Norway has as a result implemented a series of measures to cut off export guarantees for trade and investment, and will oppose any new loans from the World Bank to Iran, he said.

It will also oppose Iranian membership in the Asian Bank and block its membership in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

 

Overview

 

Women's Army Takes on Mullahs

Sunday Times, April 27

 

… In the ultimate act of defiance against Iran's Islamic leaders who treat women as second-class citizens, she [Nasferi, an Iranian woman previously living in Washington] has joined more than 10,000 female soldiers training alongside men in the National Liberation Army of Iran….

The 30,000-strong army, whose officer corps is 70% female, has had harrowing encounters with Iranian forces. They have launched over 100 assaults on the resistance army's Iraqi bases in the northern salt flats, including a Scud missile attack on the Al-Ashraf camp where Nasferi is based.

This has done nothing to diminish the resolve of the women….

Unlike any other army in the world, the Iranian opposition expects women to drive tanks, pilot combat helicopters and command battalions; and by all accounts they have acquitted themselves well. When Iranian units drove into Iraq in an effort to smash their bases in 1990, they were quickly repelled….

Many of the women are devoted followers of Maryam Rajavi, a former metallurgical engineer dubbed the Joan of Arc of the Muslim world because of her outspoken attacks on the Iranian leadership. She became a joint commander of the force with her husband Massoud, the former political head of the Iranian People's Mujaheddin, who was forced into exile after Khomeini came to power….

Rajavi is confident that rising discontent in Iran, which has led to riots in many cities, makes it virtually certain that her troops will achieve their goal.

While her army trains in Iraq, agents of the National Council for the Resistance of Iran ­ the organisation's political wing ­ have infuriated the Iranian government by bombarding the country's 60m inhabitants with calls to rise up against them. Radio stations transmit anti-government messages throughout Iran, while a new satellite television service also exhorts Iranians to revolt.

In a further blow to the mullahs, western analysts say the army has been able to set up an underground organisation inside Iran to carry out limited military operations and has sometimes been "spectacularly successful" in gathering accurate information about the regime's activities.

All this has caused fury in the Iranian government, which has made repeated attempts to smash the army. In the most recent attack in January, Iranian infiltrators armed with three mortars tried to blow up one of the group's offices, in central Baghdad. The Iranian government is becoming increasingly edgy about opposition….

Yet despite the size and strength of the resistance army ­ it is the largest, best armed opposition force poised outside any country's borders ­ it has been largely ignored by everyone except the Iranian leadership, which has made members of the organisation a top target for assassination and military attacks….

The Iranian soldiers who come face to face with the women resistance fighters are no doubt just as surprised. "To see a woman in front of them on the battle field is something they cannot understand," said Nasferi. "But we are the complete opposite of all that the mullahs stand for. When Iranians see the role that we women have they know there is no going back to the days of Khomeini."

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