Fire Contained At In Iran's Largest Shiite Shrine

In the 89th session of Hamid Nouri’s trial on Friday, plaintiffs' lawyers said Nouri played "an active role" in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in Iranian prisons in 1988 and requestedthe court hand out the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for him.

Swedish prosecutors who invoked the principle of "universal jurisdiction" for serious crimes to bring the case to trial submitted their final indictment life imprisonment for Nouri on Thursday.

Nouri, allegedly a former deputy prosecutor at Gohardasht Prison near Tehran at the time of the killings, has been charged with “war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, and participating in the continued crime of refusing to return the bodies of executed prisoners to their families.” He has denied any wrongdoing and said plaintiffs' allegations were a "completely imaginary story".

Witnesses have told the court that Nouri, who went by the alias Hamid Abbasi at the time, was responsible for handing down death sentences and taking prisoners to where they were hanged or shot.

Following Thursday's announcement of the prosecution's demand for life imprisonment, Sweden's Foreign Ministry advised citizens against making unnecessary trips to Iran, citing increased "expression of dissatisfaction" of Iranian officials over Nouri's trial.

There have been allegations that Iran seeks to exchange Nouri with Swedish-Iranian scientist and academic Ahmad-Reza Djalali arrested on vague charges of espionage and collaboration with Israel in 2016 and sentenced to death in 2017.

Sweden arrested Nouri, now 61, upon his arrival in Sweden at Stockholm Airport in 2019 and in August 2021put him on trial over the mass execution and torture of prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in July and August 1988.

Most of victims were linked to the opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) but there were also some with links to leftist and secular groups such as Fadaiyan Khalq Organization (FKO) and Tudeh Party as well as some Kurdish groups such as Komala and Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran.

Nouri is the first person ever put on trial for the executions carried out on the basis of a fatwa by Iran's then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, against the MEK which carried out a wave of bombings in Iran and struck an alliance with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 war.

President Ebrahim Raisi was one of the four judges of an ad hoc judicial committee formed to carry out the fatwa which came to be known among prisoners as the ‘Death Commission.’

The committee decided the fate of prisoners in secretly held summary trials. Raisi has denied any role in the sentences but has at the same time said the action taken against the MEK was justified due to their acts of violence.

Some of the prisoners who were subsequently executed had been freed from prison much before the prison purge but were rearrested and put on trial again to ensure they truly denounced the MEK and were "sufficiently repentant".

The exact number of prisoners executed during the purging of prisoners in 1988 is not known but according to Amnesty International, the Iranian authorities "forcibly disappeared" and "extrajudicially executed" around 5,000 between July and September 1988.

The MEK’s National Council of Resistance of Iran in 2019 named over 5,000 members as victims in a booklet ‘Crimes Against Humanity.

Speaking on Iran's annual Quds Day, Al-Houthi echoed statements made by Iranian leaders earlier in the day, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who threatened those Arab countries which have established full ties with Israel.

Iran's Fras news website affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) covered Al-Houthi's remarks.

Yemen's Houthis receive military and political support by Iran in their conflict with other Yemenis backed by a Saudi-led coalition since 2014.

Iranian leaders made aggressive remarks against Israel and Arab counties who have signed peace deals with Israel, anid stralled nuclear talks with the United States.

Al-Houthi said, "Those who accompany the Israeli enemy are retreating from clear principles."

Another senior Houthi official, Mohammad Al-Bakhiti, threatened Israel on Friday demanding that it "seizes actions against Quds" or Jerusalem. He said that if the city, also consideredholy by Muslims, would face an existential threat, that would trigger a regional conflict.

He added that missiles and drones have changed the military equation and created a new reality.

Iran has been sharing its missile and drone technology with Yemena;s Houthis and has also supllied other proxy froces, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqo Shiite militias.

Delivering a speech on the occasion of Quds day, the last Friday of Ramadan, Hassan Nasrallah said the path of armed resistance has proven that Israel would not prevail, noting, “We have inflicted many successive defeats on this regime so far”.

He described solo attacks as a special new development deemed dangerous for Israel, and said such operations expose the weaknesses of the Israeli security apparatus because they require no operation room or facilities.

Nasrallah said such operations have damaged the Israelis’ confidence in their army and government, showing them that “security and occupation do not come together”.

Calling for more suicide attacks, he said that “the liberation of Palestine does not require strong armies but needs mujahideen”.

Nasrallah also praised Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for supporting “the resistance”, saying, "What Imam Khamenei said today underscored his serious and firm commitment to supporting Palestine and the resistance movements in the region."

Earlier in the day, Khamenei warned Arab countries against normalizing ties with Israel, saying that today the Israeli army "has been forced to turn its aggressive formation into a defensive one" and the United States has suffered major setbacks.

Saudi Arabian daily Okaz said last week that Hezbollah has asked Iran for $25 million in addition to the annual funds it receives from Tehran to finance the group’s activities for parliamentary elections in Lebanon.

On Thursday night, social media users were spreading the claim on Telegram channels that the Qatari envoy, initially named as Ali Ben Hamad Al Sulaiti, had been targeted on a Tehran street. The current ambassador is Mohammed bin Hamad Al Hajri, who replaced Al Sulaiti after he announced as Qatar's ambassador to Peru in 2018.

Iran’s foreign ministry cautioned media outlets to be careful over reporting such ‘news,’ while the Qatari embassy did not comment.

Tehran supported Doha after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain launched an economic boycott of Qatarin 2017. The quartet made 13 demands of Qatar including ending any ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi opposition, closing the al-Jazeera television station, and restricting relations with Iran.

During February’s visit by President Ebrahim Raisi to Doha for the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, the two countries signed several deals. Iran and Qatar share the world’s biggest gas-field, with Iran’s portion known as South Pars and Qatar’s as North Dome.

A statement issued Friday by the provincial office of the intelligence ministry said that all members of the cell had been arrested, thwarting plans by the “terrorist outfit” for operations timed to coincide with international Quds Day, which falls on the last Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, April 29 in 2022, and Labor Day, May 1.

“Gathering information from labor unions, inciting rallies in front of governorates, trying to provoke clashes and riots, documenting protests, spreading false news about the killing or suicide of Kurdish women, and insulting religious sanctities have been the core activities of this group,” the announcement said.

Along with other Kurdish groups and parties, Komala uses bases in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and its peshmerga have for decades been involved in intermittent clashes with Iran’s armed forces.

Generally, the Kurdish parties − including Komala and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) − favor Kurdish autonomy within a federal Iran. Pejak (the Free Life Party of Kurdistan), an affiliated of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), formed in Turkey but also based in northern Iraq, has generally favored a unified, independent Kurdistan uniting Kurds in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran.