A mysterious remote-control bomb killed Iran’s top nuclear scientist today, Arutz 7 reports.
Iran’s Government confirmed that the victim, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, was a lecturer in nuclear energy and that he was a senior nuclear scientist. No suspects in the killing have been arrested.
It is not known if he was directly involved in developing Iran’s nuclear facilties, but Government media stated that he was a “staunch supporter” of the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Iran has banned its citizens from having contact with 60 organizations including the BBC, Human Rights Watch and opposition website Rahesabz as well as US-funded broadcasters, Ynet reports.
Iran#s deputy intelligence minister in charge of external affairs said that the 60 blacklisted groups were suspected of being involved in efforts by Western governments to topple the Islamic regime as part of a “soft war” and that it was an offence to communicate with them.
“Any kind of …

Iran arrested several foreign nationals during the anti-Government demonstrations last week, the BBC reports.
Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said that those detained had been “pursuing propaganda and psychological warfare”. He did not give their nationalities.
Some 300 of the 500 people arrested remain in detention after mass protests in Tehran on 27th December during the Shia Muslim festival of Ashura. At least eight people were killed in a crackdown on anti-Government protests.
The late December demonstrations were …

The leader of Iran’s opposition, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has fled Tehran, The Times reports.
Mousavi, defeated in hotly disputed elections in June, left the Iranian capital on a day marked by pro-government rallies at which crowds chanted “Death to Mousavi”. Another of the leaders, Mahdi Karroubi, are also said to have fled.
The news comes three days after Mousavi’s nephew Ali was killed during a protest against the regime in which at least eight lost their lives.

Iran’s Government vented their anger at Britain last night, declaring that London deserved a “punch in the mouth” for its role as the “chief culprit” behind the mass protests sweeping the Islamic Republic, the Independent reports.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei further upped the ante at home, branding senior opposition members “enemies of God” who deserved to be executed. And in what human rights groups and diplomats described as another “ominous development”, Iranian police told …

At least 15 people were killed during massive anti-government protests in Tehran when opposition supporters clashed with security forces in the streets, Iran’s Government blame West for the violence.
10 people were killed during Sunday’s fierce clashes in the Iranian capital were members of “anti-revolutionary terrorist” groups, according to state television, apparently referring to opposition supporters, Fox News reports. The other five who died were killed by “terrorist groups” in a “suspicious act,” TV said, without …

According to a new survey, Iran’s nuclear threat to regional security has replaced Israel as the Arab world’s public enemy number one for the Arab world, Arutz 7 reports.
A majority of respondents from 18 Arab countries said Iran is a bigger threat than Israel, and nearly a third think that Tehran is just as likely to target them as Israel. However, an overwhelming 80 per cent do not believe that Iran is trying to build …

Iranian senior cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, died on Sunday at the age of 87, alalam.ir reports.
Montazeri had been designated to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, but the two had a falling out a few months before Khomeini died of cancer in 1989.
Then he served as a professor at Hawza (Theologian School) in the holy city of Qom and became a dissident of the Government.
According to Ynet, hundreds …

Iran has successfully tested “an upgraded version” of its longest-range, solid-fuel missile, Fox News reports.
State television broke the news in a one-sentence report that gave no details on the test of the Sajjil-2 missile, a high-speed, surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,200 miles.
That range places Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, well within reach and reaches as far away as southeastern Europe with greater precision than earlier models.
Iran has intensified its missile development program in …

The United States said that revelations that Iran has been working secretly on a trigger for a nuclear bomb urgently underscore the case for tough new sanctions against Tehran, The Times reports.
Referring to a report in The Times yesterday, which suggested that Iran has been working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb, a senior US official said: “Now that work may have been done on a trigger mechanism, this certainly gives …

Dozens of Iranian Government agents on motorbikes have surrounded the Tehran office of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and the country’s chief prosecutor is threatening to arrest him, The Times reports.
The moves come just one day after tens of thousands of students across the country staged the latest in a long series of demonstrations against the Government the so-called “Green” movement regards as illegitimate.
Mousavi is the former Prime Minister who was defeated by President Mahmoud …

Thousands of student protesters gathered at universities in Tehran and other cities across Iran today, chanting anti-government slogans and fighting with the police in the opposition’s first major street protests in weeks, the New York Times reports.
The main entrance to Tehran University was sealed off by security forces, while clashes broke out between protesters and tens of thousands of Basij militia in squares around the city. Protests erupted at universities in Mashad, Isfahan and Hamdean, …

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that Iran will start enriching uranium to a level of 20 per cent, defying a UN call to halt the process due to fears over the country’s nuclear program.
Addressing a crowd in Iran’s central province of Isfahan, Ahmadinejad said the West has been making efforts to get in the way of Iran’s nuclear progress, Iranian Press TV reports.
“We asked for 20 per cent enriched uranium fuel which according …

Iran’s state radio said today that the authorities have released the five British sailors who had been detained in the Gulf after their yacht apparently strayed into Iranian waters, The Times reports.
However British officials in the region said the men were not yet in British hands and they were awaiting confirmation of the release, which was reported to have happened overnight.
A British official in Tehran said that no timetable had been established for a handover …

Iran today confirmed that its navy has detained five British yachtsmen in the Persian Gulf, the Guardian reports.
The men were seized six days ago when their racing yacht was intercepted by Iran’s navy while on its way from Bahrain to an event in Dubai, but the incident was kept secret as the Foreign Office sought to establish what had happened and tried to avoid raising the political temperature.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed their naval forces had …

Iran is to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, and the country’s Vice-President Ali Akbar Salehi accused the West of provoking his country into the plan, the BBC reports.
Salehi said that a UN demand for Iran to halt work on a recently revealed site had “prompted the government to approve the plan”.
Western powers say Iran is trying to develop nuclear arms. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful.
Iran’s proposed new plants would be of a …