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A leaked report prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran may have continued testing detonators and missile re-entry systems associated with atomic weapons beyond 2004 and has already enriched a small amount of its uranium to a nearly 20 percent level suitable for a crude nuclear bomb, according to multiple news reports on Thursday.

The IAEA paper, scheduled to be presented to the organization's 35-country board on March 1, is the first to be issued under the leadership of newly minted chief Yukiya Amano, who took over from Mohamed ElBaradei in December.

In an anonymous background briefing to reporters, a senior Obama administration official sounded a stern line. He said that Iran's "pattern of behavior is one that is very disturbing" and noted that "this is the first time that [the IAEA has] now raised a question that there may be ongoing activities related to weaponization."

Update, 8:16 a.m. (from Gregg): Opposition Web sites are reporting (فارسی) a massive security presence in the streets: rows of riot police, some seven or eight deep, lining the streets along the route of the pro-government rally. Opposition groups are trying to organize rallies, but it sounds like (so far) they haven't been able to gather en masse. 

RAHANA, an Iranian activist site, is reporting dozens of arrests in Sadeghieh Square and other locations throughout Tehran. Sadeghieh Square is about one kilometer from Azadi Square, where the pro-government demonstrators assembled.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking Sunday at a conference to showcase advancements in laser technology, ordered the head of his country's Atomic Energy Agency to find a way to enrich uranium to a more easily weaponized level.

The speech has made waves in the Western media, though the news is fairly light: Ahmadinejad told Ali Akbar Salehi, the atomic energy chief, to begin drawing up plans to produce more highly enriched uranium, not to actually do it. But as with all things Iran-related (e.g. last week's news about accelerating U.S. deployments in the Gulf) the slightest bit of change becomes magnified.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the annual Munich Security Conference that a deal on shipping Iranian uranium out of the country to be enriched could be reached in the "not too distant future," according to the BBC.

"Under the present conditions that we have reached, I think that we are approaching a final agreement that can be accepted by all parties," he said.

American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brushed aside Mottaki's remarks, which were welcomed by China, saying: "The fact is we haven't really seen much in the way of response ... Sometimes we see a response from a part of the government that is then retracted from another part of the government."

Two men whom Iranian authorities accused of belonging to opposition groups were hanged at dawn on Thursday, allegedly for participating in recent anti-government protests. The two were accused of being mohareb, or enemies of God, and with trying to overthrow the Iranian government.

They were identified as Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour. Rahmanipour's lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, told the AFP that she had only met her client once, for a few minutes, and was denied the chance to participate in any of his court hearings. Sotoudeh said Rahmanipour had nothing to do with the post-election protests in Iran and that he confessed to the charges "because of threats against his family," according to Al-Jazeera.

A parliamentary panel in Iran has blamed the former chief prosecutor in Tehran for the deaths of three anti-government protesters who were detained in Kahrizak prison following the controversial June presidential elections, according to the AP.

The prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, was promoted in August to a national position as the deputy state prosecutor in charge of combating smuggling. He had oversight over Kahrizak when he served in Tehran, the AP reported.

Some in the opposition Green Movement have claimed that detained protesters were also raped, but the government has not validated those claims.

Mortazavi personally conducted "dozens" of interrogations of opposition protesters, the AP said.

Not to alienate any of our readers in the Palmetto State, but is there something in the water in South Carolina that makes elected officials go nuts? First there was Gov. Sanford, now this: Representative Gresham Barrett (R) plans to reintroduce a piece of legislation he wrote seven years ago that would completely bar nationals from Yemen and the four official State Sponsors of Terrorism from coming to the United States except in special circumstances.

From Barrett's Web site:

While President Obama may have declared an end to the War on Terror, it is clear our enemies did not get the message. Twice in the past two months, radical Islamic terrorists have attacked our nation and the Administration has failed to adapt its national security and immigration policies to counter the renewed resolve of those who seek to harm our citizens.

Update (1/3/09 7:55 p.m.): The New York Times has rounded out the list of the 14 countries that have earned special scrutiny under the new travel rules that will be instituted at midnight tonight. All but two are in the Middle East, and all but one have a majority Muslim population.

Original post: The Obama administration is instituting new rules for the Transportation Security Administration that will require pat-downs and bag searches for every passenger flying into the United States from 14 "terrorism-prone" countries, Politico reports. The 14 countries of origin that have been singled out for extra scrutiny are: Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria - the State Department's four "state sponsors of terrorism" - as well as Nigeria, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Algeria.

The British Daily Telegraph claims to have an account from an Iranian defector that details both amusing and disturbing personal anecdotes about Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man at the top of the often paranoid clerical regime.

Among the alleged revelations: Khamenei lives an "imperial" lifestyle among six palaces, including one former residence of the Shah and two with "reinforced concrete nuclear bunkers said to be capable of withstanding nuclear attack." He also suffers "regular bouts" of depression that he remedies, in part, by calling in a "mid-ranking mullah" for regular sessions of vulgar joke-telling.

BBC News reports that Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, one of the Iranian regime's most prominent opponents, has passed away in his home. They don't report any foul play. Although this might on its face appear to put a dent in the opposition's momentum, the BBC notes that protesters will use Montazeri's funeral as an occasion to stage demonstrations.

Middle East watchers were buzzing this morning about an Iranian incursion into southeastern Iraq. Headlines made the maneuver seem ominous: "Iranian forces take over Iraq oil well," AFP said. Some news reports had trouble pinning down the exact location of the incident, adding to the confusion.

Turns out this kind of thing happens fairly often, according to an American brigade commander based nearby.

"What happens is, periodically, about every three or four months, the oil ministry guys from Iraq will go ... to fix something or do some maintenance. They'll paint it in Iraqi colors and throw an Iraqi flag up," said Colonel Peter Newell, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division. "They'll hang out there for a while, until they get tired, and as soon as they go away, the Iranians come down the hill and paint it Iranian colors and raise an Iranian flag. It happened about three months ago and it will probably happen again."

British authorities confirmed that five Britons whose racing yacht had strayed into Iranian waters had been released by that country, the New York Times reports. The five men were sailing their 60-foot yacht from Bahrain to Dubai for the start of a race when they suffered propeller problems, the AP reported.

Iran's treatment of the British sailors differs markedly from their approach to three American hikers who were arrested in July after apparently mistakenly walking into Iranian territory. The hikers have been imprisoned since then and currently face espionage charges, despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's assertion that "there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever.

Say, remember a couple years ago, when a building on the Syrian Euphrates mysteriously blew up, and it took several days before we finally started figuring out that the Israelis had done something naughty?

Well, the alleged al-Kibar nuclear reactor complex, or as the blogosphere arms control and nuclear physics nerds prefer to call it, the Box On Euphrates (BOE), is back in the news again, courtesy of a lengthy article posted last week on Der Spiegel's Web site.

In it, reporters Erich Follath and Holger Stark retrace the steps that led to "Operation Orchard," the Sept. 6, 2007, act of war that neither aggressor nor victim want to talk about. Though much of the piece is a clip job, and Follath and Stark aren't able to solve the riddle of what was actual going on at al-Kibar, they add a few intriguing data points and break some news: They claim that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is considering acknowledging his country's nuclear program in a move that, like Muammar al-Qadhafi's, could earn a warm embrace from the West.

A quick note before I crash: Opposition protesters have, as planned, taken to the streets in Iran in an effort to subvert the 30th anniversary of the U.S. embassy takeover - a celebratory day of sorts for hardliners in Iran - to show their displeasure with their own Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This morning, Gregg wrote about Mahmoud Vahidnia, a math whiz and sophomore at Iran's Sharif University of Technology who publicly criticized Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to his face, after Khamenei made a speech at the university on Wednesday.

The story of Vahidnia's audacity was, curiously, first reported on Khamenei's official Web site. Yet concerns lingered over whether Vahidnia, reportedly harassed by "security forces" after his 20-minute critique, had been arrested. The Los Angeles Times' Babylon & Beyond blog gave us news on Monday (which I'm just now seeing) that Vahidnia was not arrested and is doing fine. New video and quotes from Vahidnia, after the jump.

There's a rule that discerning news readers of all stripes should keep in mind: Always be skeptical when a journalist interviews another journalist, because (to be crude) it's probably going to end up something like this (and I'm not saying I'd be any different, for the record).

Eli Khoury isn't exactly a journalist, but as the publisher of the liberal, pro-West NOW Lebanon, he's close enough. His like-minded interviewer in this case - Michael Totten. Qifa Nabki already ripped apart the portion of the interview where Khoury insists that Maronites aren't Arabs, but the fun doesn't end there. While I agree with much that they have to say, the interview is just a little too sychophantic for my tastes.

Just in time for today's P5+1 negotiations with Iran, which may have actually netted a concession from the country, Salon has posted a list of common misconceptions about the Persian Powerhouse, courtesy of Juan Cole.

A lot of this stuff is common knowledge to Middle East aficionados, but I was still struck reading Cole's response to the first common misconception - that Iran is an aggressive nation that has threatened its neighbors and others:

Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the U.S. or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of "no first strike." This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Cole also points out that Iran's defense budget is smaller than Greece, Sweden and SIngapore and smaller per capita than any other Persian Gulf country except for the United Arab Emirates. Click through to the post to read more enlightening explanations about what Ahmadinejd really meant when he said Israel should disappear, and whether anyone actually believes the Holocaust didn't happen.

Update #2: CNN evidently neglects to post entire interviews online, therefore I'm relying on that old stalwart, YouTube, to bring you a full liveblog of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Larry King interview.

0:00 - King asks Ahmadinejad immediately about Friday's big news: the revelation of Iran's "secret" nuclear facility near Qom.

As he did at the beginning of his Today Show interview with NBC News correspondent Ann Curry, Ahmadinejad opens his first response with words of praise for God and thanks King and his viewers. As I've said before, Ahmadinejad is definitely PR-savvy.

As we've been following today's developments regarding Iran's "secret" nuclear facility, we've left unaddressed several federal terrorism cases that, by accident or design, are popping up in the news right now, the foremost among them being the prosecution of Najibullah Zazi.

I had planned on summarizing the cases, but now I see a more useful line of analysis that connects Iran with the home-grown terrorist threat: Conservative and neoconservative ignorance.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald, crusading defender of American civil liberties, is in a tizzy today because the Washington Post's editorial page is calling for Barack Obama to press Iran on human rights issues when representatives from both countries meet in landmark face-to-face negotiations next month.