Analysis: Iran has its own terrorism problem

[Donald Ian Rankin]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255694839679&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Iran, the country "credited" with being the world's No. 1 state-sponsor of terrorism, has a terrorism problem of its own.

Indeed, Iran received a dose of its own medicine, when a shadowy Sunni separatist group named Jundullah targeted a group of high-level Iranian security officials with a lethal suicide bomb attack on Sunday. The attack killed the deputy commander of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards Ground Forces, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh, deputy commander of the Guard in the restive Sistan-Baluchistan province, and at least 29 others. Dozens of people were wounded.

It was one of the harshest attacks sustained by Iran in recent years.

The Islamic republic has the motto "Death to Israel" etched onto its flag, and ensures that the lifeblood of terrorist organizations - weapons and cash - continue to flow into the hands of Hizbullah and Hamas. Teheran is responsible for Hizbullah's very existence: It was intelligence agents from the Islamic republic who helped Lebanese Shi'ites found the organization in the early 1980s.

Terror experts have named Hizbullah as the first Middle Eastern terrorist organization to employ the technique of suicide bombings, setting a bloody precedent which would go on to gain worldwide notoriety.



(More at link)


I posted this to give an illustration of how the Israeli press deals with a terrorist attack that killed 29 otherwise-innocent people who had committed the terrible crime of being Iranian.

[azurnoir]

1. This end bit was especially "lovely"

Iran has frequently blamed the US and Britain for aiding the organization, and renewed the charge on Sunday, though Washington was quick to deny any involvement. Whatever its base of operation, Jundullah's attack has exposed Iran's intolerable terrorism hypocrisy.

so because Iran funds Hamas they are supposed to welcome attacks against their own citizens?

and I wonderhow many will takee the bit about "death to Israel" being part of the Iranian flag?

here is the Wiki entry for Iranian flag

The current flag of Iran (Persian: پرچم ایران) was adopted on July 29, 1980, and is a reflection of the changes brought about by the Iranian Revolution. The emblem in the center of the flag is a highly stylized composite of various elements representing different facets of Islamic life: Allah, the Book, the Sword, the five principles of Islam, balance, unity, neutrality, and the universal government of the downtrodden.

The coat of arms of Iran has been placed in the center of the white band which is meant to have multiple meanings, but is essentially a geometrically-symmetric form of the word Allah as well as overlapping parts of the Islamic phrase "la ilaha illa Allah" ("There is no god but Allah"), forming a monogram.

The symbol consists of four crescents and a sword. The four crescents form the word Allah: from right to left the first crescent is the letter "Aleph", the second one is the letter "Laam", the sword (straight line) is the second "Laam", and the third and forth crescents together form the letter "Heh". Above the sword (central part) is a tashdid (a diacritical mark for gemination resembling a letter W). The sword represents a powerful and sovereign state. The shape of the emblem is chosen to remind people of a red tulip, for the memory of the (young) people who died for Iran, building on a legendary belief that red tulips grow on the blood of martyrs, valuing patriotism and self-sacrifice. It also bears strong resemblance to ancient Iranian Sassanid art forms usually found on royal crowns and coins, as well as the ends of certain types of vajra. The symbol was designed by Hamid Nadimi, and was officially approved by Ayatollah Khomeini on May 9, 1980.

A further change to the flag following the Revolution has been the addition of writing on the borders between the white, and the green and red bands reading, Allahu Akbar ("God is great") in a stylized version of the Kufic script used for the Qur'an. There are 22 (2×11) copies of this inscription, symbolic of the 22nd day of the 11th month (Bahman) in the Persian calendar—the date of the Islamic revolution (22 Bahman 1357 = February 11, 1979) over the Pahlavi dynasty. The addition of this writing renders the flag non-reversible.

Physical requirements for the Iranian flag, the exact shape of the emblem and a compass and straightedge construction are described in the national Iranian standard ISIRI 1 (in Persian).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Iran

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. So is the "death to Israel" bit a complete fabrication?

or are they misrepresenting something with a grain of truth to it?

[azurnoir]

3. as far as I could tell that statement was and I am being polite

a form of literary symbolism, not fact I could not find anything that said "death to Israel" was part of the Iranian flag, of course I could be wrong

[oberliner]

4. That is an Op-Ed piece in a RW news source that doesn't even publish in Hebrew

Hardly indicative of how the Israeli press deals with a terrorist attack.