The Latest from Iran (19 September): Another Regime Move on Syria

Syria's President Assad with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi

See also The Latest from Iran (18 September): Nuclear Manoeuvres

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2010 GMT: Budget Watch. Marcus George and Zahra Hosseinian combine statistics, observations from analysts to write, "Unemployment Mounts as Iran's Economy Falters":

A wealthy Iranian businessman sits in the lobby of one of Dubai's most luxurious hotels, shaking his head as he laments the state of Iran's economy....

He is en route from Europe, where he runs a company that makes electrical goods, to Iran, a trip he makes several times a year....

"Business is drying up, industry is collapsing. There's zero investment," he said. "I know. I see it with my own eyes."

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Grind of the Conflict

2148 GMT: Syria. The daily death toll has reached at least 150, according to the Local Coordination Committees:

72 of them were in Damascus and suburbs including 30 in Hajar Aswad, 20 were slaughtered in Jobar and 3 were field executed in Qadam. 32 martyrs in Aleppo most of them are in Manbej, 25 in Hama most of them are in Hwaija village and Masha' Arba'een neighborhood, 10 martyrs in Deir Ezzor most of them in Almohasan, 5 in Daraa, 3 in Idlib, 2 in Latakia and a martyr in Homs.

See our note on the casualty figures put forward by the Local Coordination Committees).

September is on track to be one of the bloodiest months in the recent history of the Middle East. August in Syria was the bloodiest of the last 10 years, even bloodier than any single month of conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan, even when using conservative numbers.

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The Latest from Iran (18 September): Nuclear Manoeuvres

See also Iran Snapshot: "Bad Hijab" Woman Beats Up Cleric
The Latest from Iran (17 September): An Intervention in Syria

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1755 GMT: Currency Watch. Central Bank head Mahmoud Bahmani has announced a Bank portal to retrace moves in the official rate for foreign exchange, indicating there will be a halt to sales on the open market.

1750 GMT: All the President's Men (cont.). MP Mohammad Bayatiani has contested the claim that 164 MPs --- more than half the Majlis --- have supported controversial Presidential aide Saeed Mortazavi in his position as head of the re-formed Social Security Organization (see 1515 GMT) is "an obvious lie". He said the legislators had given thanks to the Organization, not Mortazavi.

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Iran Snapshot: "Bad Hijab" Woman Beats Up Cleric (Esfandiari)

Female "Morality Police" Enforcing "Good Hijab""I politely [told] her to cover herself up," said Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti, an Iranian cleric in the city of Shamirzad in Semnan Province, describing a recent encounter with a woman he believed was improperly veiled.

"She responded to me by saying: 'You [should] close your eyes.'"

Beheshti said he repeated his warning to the “bad hijab” woman, which is a way of describing women who do not fully observe the Islamic dress code that became compulsory following the 1979 revolution.

"Not only didn’t she cover herself up, but she also insulted me. I asked her not to insult me anymore, but she started shouting and threatening me," Beheshti said. "She pushed me and I fell to the ground on my back. From that point on, I don’t know what happened. I was just feeling the kicks of the woman who was beating me up and insulting me."

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Dying Amid the Diversion of the Mohammad Film

Shelling of al-Qusayr in Homs Province in Syria this morning

See also Syria Feature: The Insurgents Test Self-Government
Monday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Regime "Fully Purges Aleppo District From Terrorists"....Again

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2030 GMT: Syria. British Foreign Secretary William Hague has told a Parliamentary committee that any intervention can only take place with Washington's participation.

While Hague said military action could not be ruled out, he said he saw “major disadvantages” and continued, "It would require intervention on a vastly greater scale than was the case in Libya, with no prospect at the moment of agreement at the U.N. Security Council, and would require the full involvement of the United States."

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Syria Feature: The Insurgents Test Self-Government (Daragahi)

Opposition demonstration in Souran, 7 September 2012

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The leaders of the council governing Souran, a town in rebel-controlled Syria, decide to hold an impromptu meeting right on the footpath along its main street, a gesture of open government that would impress Canada or Sweden.

They draw together some plastic chairs and a table, pour tea and, as pedestrians listen in, explain the workings of the government they have set up to replace the Baath Party and the security officials who ran the region with an iron fist under President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

“This is a new thing for us,” says Faez Hamsho, a businessman and one of 11 members of the town’s governing council. “But when Bashar’s men fled, we had to solve the day-to-day problems of the area.”

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Afghanistan Latest: At Least 12 Killed by Car Bomb This Morning

Photo: ReutersA female car bomber has killed at least 12 people, nine of them foreigners, this morning.

The attack took place at about 6:45 a.m. (0215 GMT) on the edge of the capital Kabul near the airport. The bomber blew herself up alongside a minivan, carrying foreigners who worked for the courier company ACS. Two police were wounded. 

A senior police officer said six of the dead foreigners were Russian and South Africans. One of the Afghans killed was a street-side tyre fixer.

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The Latest from Iran (17 September): An Intervention in Syria

See also Iran Analysis: Tehran Hurts Itself With Muddled Messages on Syria
The Latest from Iran (16 September): The Rhetoric, the "Protests", and Now the Threats

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1835 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Lebanese Front). Following the declaration of the head of the Revolutionary Guards that Tehran has sent members of the Quds Force to Syria and Lebanon to provide "counsel", President Michel Sulaiman has challenged the Islamic Republic. “President Sulaiman asked for an official explanation from the relevant Iranian authorities,” his office said.

1825 GMT: Currency Watch. The Iranian Rial is falling again on the open market, dropping 2% vs. the US dollar to 24950:1.

Last week, the Rial broke the 25000:1 level for the first time, less than half its value at the official rate.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank has denied widespread reports that it has halted provision of foreign currency at the official rate to importers since last month, claiming that this is still available for the most important basic goods.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Regime "Fully Purges Aleppo District From Terrorists"....Again

Claimed footage of Libyans taking US Ambassador Chris Stevens --- unconscious or dead --- from a building in Benghazi on Tuesday night (see 0520 GMT)

See also Syria Feature: The Darayya "Massacre" and a Regime's "Slow, Steady Killing Strategy"
Syria Feature: "Insurgents Subjecting Detainees to Ill-Treatment, Torture, and Execution"
Iran Analysis: Tehran Hurts Itself With Muddled Messages on Syria
Sunday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Embassy Attacks Recede, While 164 Die Across Syria on Saturday

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2106 GMT: Lebanon. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, has told a rally of tens of thousands protesting the US movie denigrating the Prophet Mohammad, “America must understand that releasing the entire film will have dangerous, very dangerous repercussions around the world.

The rally was in the Dahiyeh district of south Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. Nasrallah said to the crowd that Western arguments over freedom of speech were “hypocrisy, deception, and double standards”. He called for “an international resolution criminalizing the defamation of heavenly religions".

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Syria Feature: The Darayya "Massacre" and a Regime's "Slow, Steady Killing Strategy" (Los Angeles Times)

A mass grave in Darayya, August 2012

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As he hid from soldiers in a field next to his neighborhood, a young man watched as a cat wandered down a street. Suddenly, it was shot dead. That's when Zuhair noticed the sniper on a nearby roof.

But a father and son walking along the street didn't see the gunman, Zuhair said. The sniper lowered his head and peered through his scope.

He shot the boy first. As the man tried to grab his son, who looked to be about 10, he was shot as well.

The two are among a reported 700 victims of snipers, shelling and summary executions, most of them men, since forces loyal to President Bashar Assad stormed the Damascus suburb of Dariya in late August, one in a growing list of Syrian towns and villages that briefly enter the world's spotlight, only to be replaced by another one when a new mass killing is committed.

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