The National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a statement on Saturday indicating that the power struggle within the clerical regime has escalated following last Tuesday's harsh speech by mullahs' leader Ali Khamenei and as the Assembly of Experts election draws closer.
In its Saturday meeting, presided over by Hashemi Rafsanjani and attended by mullahs' President Khatami, the Council for the Discernment of State Exigencies backed Khamenei's speech and underscored the need to "deal decisively with those responsible for the cultural onslaught which undermines the country's national security." This position is a clear retreat on the part of Khatami and Rafsanjani in the wake of Khamenei's offensive.
It was announced in Tehran today that several publications, including the weekly Rahe-no, Tavana and Aban periodicals as well as the monthly Iran Farda have ceased publication. Before, them, the "Islamic Revolutionary Prosecutor's Office" had banned the daily Toos for "acting against the national security."
In another development, the conflict over the competence of candidates for the Assembly of Experts election has aggravated further. Through the Guardians Council, Khamenei's faction has rejected the qualification of a number of candidates from the rival faction and made the approval of the competence of many of them conditional on passing the "ijihad" exams. A number of candidates from the rival faction refused to take that test. They include Abdollah Nouri, former Interior Minister and Khatami's deputy for Social Affairs and Development, Hadi Khamenei, Majid Ansari, leader of the pro-Khatami parliamentary faction, Ali Akbar Mohtashami, Mohammad-Javad Hojjati Kermani and Mohammad Hadavi.
According to guidelines set by the Guardians Council, these candidates, among key figures of the Khatami faction, are automatically eliminated from the list of candidates because of their refusal to take the exams.
 

Iran Newspaper Columnist Arrested, The Associated Press, September 19

Tehran-The political columnist for a banned Iranian newspaper was arrested Saturday in the third detention involving the paper in less than a week, colleagues said.
The columnist for Tous was arrested when he went to court after receiving a summons, said colleagues, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tous was shut down Wednesday for publishing articles detrimental "to the country's national interests and security," according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The newspaper has angered hard-liners by questioning the authority of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme religious leader.
Also arrested were Tous' editor and the director of its publishing company.
 

Mullahs' "Hard-core" Fanatics Come to the US; Khatami to Meet with "Iranians" at UN, The Dallas Morning News, September 19

...In July, a report by the federal Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States warned that in part, "the acquisition and use of transferred technologies in ballistic missile and WMD (weapons of mass destruction) has been facilitated by foreign students training in the U.S."
In February, Dale Watson, now a deputy assistant director in the FBI's national security division, noted that 419 student visas were issued to new and returning students from Iran, identified by the U.S. State Department as a state that sponsors terrorism.
"A significant number of these individuals are hard-core members of the pro-Iranian student organization known as the Anjoman Islamie, which is comprised almost exclusively of fanatical, anti-American Iranian Shiite Muslims," Watson testified. "The Iranian government relies heavily on these students studying in the United States for low-level intelligence and technical expertise."
 Watson also warned that the Anjoman Islamie "provides a significant resource base which allows the government of Iran to maintain the capability to mount operations against the United States, if it is so decided."
[The news agencies and the press have reported that Khatami intends to meet with a "large group" of Iranians residing in the United States when he comes to the United Nations.
[The majority of the so-called Anjoman Islamie students who, despite the announced "war against Western cultural invasion", have official permission to come to the United States are expected to participate in the mullahs' propaganda meeting to be held at the UN.]
 

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