2200 GMT: Your Late-Night Cyber-Treat. On Google, type “Ahmadinejad President of Iran”. Hit “I’m Feeling Lucky”.

2140 GMT: We started this morning (see 0715 GMT) by noting the possible significance of the “reformist” criticisms of Dr Javad Etaat making their way onto Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. We end today by posting the video of the first part of the interview and an English translation.

2030 GMT: Cyber-Warfare Strike. Hacking the website of Iran’s Hezbollah (Party of God) is one thing. Doing it with the slogan “The End is F***ing Near” is another. And accomplishing it with a diversion to the domain http://www.getasexpartner.com/hiz-bol.htm, well… Let’s just say that Iran’s police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam (see 1220 GMT) may want to get a bigger Internet manual if he is serious about taking on the opposition in a Web slugfest.

NEW Latest Iran Video & Translation: Dr Etaat’s Opposition On State Media (14 January)
NEW Iran: Anger, Pain, & Fear — The Funeral of Professor Ali-Mohammadi
NEW Latest Iran Video: Green Protest and the Iran-Belgium Football Match (14 January)
NEW Iran: The Regime Censors the 1979 Revolution
NEW Latest Iran Audio: The Last Lecture of Professor Ali-Mohammadi
Latest Iran Video: Al Jazeera’s Debate Over The Death of Ali-Mohammadi (13 January)
Latest Iran Video: The Life, Death, and Funeral of Professor Ali-Mohammadi (14 January)
Latest Iran Video: “A Message to Armed Forces of Iran” (13 January)
Iran Analysis: Political Manoeuvring Around the Professor’s Death
The Latest from Iran (14 January): The Professor’s Funeral

1935 GMT: Quality Analysis of Day. Well done, Asadollah Badamchian, member of Parliament: “The assassination [of Professor Ali-Mohammadi] and terrorist operation was a previously planned step in the Green Velvet Revolution.” The movement, Badamchian said, consists of five sub-groups, “each of which are gradually eroding”.
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Tags: Assembly of Experts, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashan, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Deutsche Welle, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, Green Movement, Hamid Rohani, Hamid Ruhidnejad, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Hojatoleslam Hossein Ta'eb, Hossein Taeb, Imam Ali, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Islamic Republic News Agency, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, Javad Etaat, John Bolton, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, New York Times, Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, Syed Naveed Qamar, Thomas Friedman

The Latest from Iran (29 July): Challenges Outside and Inside the Government

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In a week filled with confusions, intrigues, and confrontations within the Ahmadinejad Government, this may be the most extraordinary story of all.

On Monday afternoon, the pro-Green Movement website Mowj-e-Sabz announced, “Coup in the Ministry of Intelligence”. While public attention was focused on the President’s firing of his Minister of Intelligence, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie, there was much more happening below the headlines. Two Deputy Ministers and a number of experts — Mowj-e-Sabz claimed more than 20 — had been “forced into retirement”.

The cause? Ministry officials had been told to compile a report, based on files and interviews of detainees, on whether the quest for a “velvet revolution” by outsiders was responsible for post-election conflict. Their investigations produced the answer: No. There was no proof that “foreign” elements had instigated the protests as part of a plan for regime change.

It was an answer that did not satisfy President Ahmadinejad. He dismissed the Vice Ministers of Intelligence and of Counter-Intelligence. According to Mowj-e-Sabz and other press reports, established a parallel service, “Tehran Intelligence”, led by Hojatoleslam Ahmad Salek and Hojatoleslam Hossein Ta’eb, both of whom are affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Was this dispute over the “velvet revolution”, rather than the Cabinet argument over the First Vice President, the real reason for Minister of Intelligence Ejeie’s dismissal? Does the replacement of Ministry officials by activists close to the Revolutionary Guard, combined by Ahmadinejad’s assertion that the Ministry reports to him rather than the Supreme Leader, constitute a “coup” by the President and the IRGC against their own Government?

I’m not sure I would go so far as to answer “Yes”. But I do think that the irony is that any notion of an outside “velvet revolution” has been overtaken by an inside bureaucratic war. How far this war spreads could define the next phase of the post-election challenge to the Iranian system.

Tags: Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie, Hojatoleslam Ahmad Salek, Hojatoleslam Hossein Ta'eb, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mowj-e-sabz