The Latest from Iran (5 November): You're A Terrorist --- No, You Are...

See also Iran Website Special: The Basij Militia's "Wall Street Fall"
The Latest from Iran (4 November): Ahmadinejad Punches Back

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1449 GMT: The US Initiative. Opposition analyst Ebrahim Nabavi has issued a sharp response to the recent public-relations campaign by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in particular, her criticism of the Green Movement for not seeking American assistance after the disputed 2009 Presidential election:

When there were talks of U.S. negotiations with Iran [in autumn 2009 over Tehran's nuclear programme], people chanted in the streets: “Obama, either with them, or with us.” Those people who shouted in Iran --- and are now sitting in their homes while hating the Iranian dictatorship --- expected you to hear such loud voices. It was after those chants that the leaders of the Green Movement, [Mir Hossein Mousavi] and [Mehdi Karroubi], said people are the real leaders of the movement. What were you supposed to hear that you didn’t? Many opportunities were lost only because you didn’t know whether you should listen to the people or to your Iranian advisers who kept saying Musavi and Karrubi are religious, as if in a country like Iran, Bill Gates should become president.

1445 GMT: Hype Watch. Yet another spin effort by unnamed "diplomats" to international media ahead of next week's release of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's nuclear programme....

The Associated Press is the chosen outlet to declare findings of "computer models of a nuclear warhead and other previously undisclosed details on alleged secret work", including "satellite imagery of...a large steel container used for nuclear arms-related high explosives tests".

AP reports, without critique, that "the newest compilation of suspected weapons-related work is significant in substance and scope".

1434 GMT: The Plot. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has again denounced the US claim of an Iran-backed plan to kill the Saudi Ambassador to Washington. He reiterated that Gholam Shakuri, the Iranian military official who is at the heart of the allegations, is actually a member of the insurgent group Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO).

Salehi repeated that Iran has complained to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the claim is part of a multi-pronged US strategy to discredit Iran.

1430 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. HRANA reports that environmental activist Veria Khosravi was arrested on 23 October in Sanandaj in Kurdistan Province. The reason for the raid on her house and the detention is unknown.

1420 GMT: Listening to War Drums. A senior military official, speaking anonymously, has expressed concern that Israel will not consult Washington before a military attack on Iran.

The official said that the Administration believed it would be warned Israel of any action but "now that doesn't seem so ironclad".

In what appears to be a further signal to West Jerusalem, the military official emphasised US concern over the risk for American troops in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf of any Israeli attack, and he declared that Washington not intend to pursue military operations.

1150 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Activist Ali Ronaghi has been arrested in Mashhad.

1140 GMT: Hype Watch. Friday's media swoon was over a dramatic statement from an unnamed US military official, speaking at "a forum in Washington": "The biggest threat to the United States and to our interests and to our friends, I might add, has come into focus and it's Iran."

The news media were instructed not to identify the official, who weakened his declaration with the admission, "I don't know that the Iranians have made the decision to make a nuclear weapon," the official said."

0930 GMT: Oil Watch. Diligent management or a bit of panic? Minister of Oil Rustam Qassemi has said that work on all phases of the South Pars oil and natural gas project must be round-the-clock, adding that contractors who fail to meet the monthly target of 2.5% progress will be fired.

Amidst the declaration of Iranian officials, including Qassemi, that the country will achieve energy self-sufficiency, the South Pars project, including the largest gas field in the world, has been beset by delays, technical problems, and withdrawal of foreign companies.

0920 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Yadollah Javani, a senior official in the Revolutionary Guards, has put out a warning to the President's camp --- declaring that the Guards' most important duty is preserving velayat-e-faqih (clerical supremacy), Javani claimed that Ahmadinejad's inner circle has "established suspicious relations with foreigners".

And hardline MP Esmail Kowsari has declared that a Thursday meeting with the President was a "diversion" set up by the "deviant current": "We don't support him any longer."

0800 GMT: Friday brought a diversion from the politics and suppression of opposition inside Iran with the annual commemoration of the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy. And that in turn put on a layer of international posturing, topping the Israeli "war talk" from earlier this week.

Iranian officials used the occasion to turn around the US accusations of Tehran's terrorism in alleged plans to kill the Saudi Ambassador in Washington. Friday Prayer leader Ahmad Khatami laid out the downfall of America as Saeed Jalili, the Secretary of the National Security Council, told a crowd at the old US Embassy that he had memoranda proving the US terror plots.

Press TV proclaimed that two sets of documents were displayed, but no details --- or images --- are provided. Still, Kazam Jalali of Parliament's National Security Commission insisted, "The Americans will never be able to exploit terrorism after Iran goes public with the documents it has gathered on US terrorist activities."

Other officials, such as the Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs, Mohammad Reza Mir-Tajeddini, put out the message of Washington as the “flag-bearer” of global terrorism, referring to the Supreme Leader's invocation on Wednesday on 100 American schemes around the world (information still to appear).