Revolution Muslim Website Dead

Revolution Muslim Telephone # 718-312-8203 (USA)
Revolution Muslim
This is a dead website, but the cache holds these names:

Abu Saif
Younes Abdullah Mohammad
Abdullah al-Amin
Abu Talha al-Amriki
Al X
Shaykh Abdul Malik
Qismah bint Faisal
Linda G. Richard


If you can’t figure out why the right to offend is as important as the right of free speech, consider the warning that “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have received over their cartoon depiction of Muhammad in a bear suit.

• “We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee wrote.
• “This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”Al-Amrikee, a New York resident and admirer of Osama bin Laden, posted the warning – with a photograph of a dead Van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker shot and stabbed in 2004 for his film about Muslim women – on the Web site RevolutionMuslim.com

The REst @ Free Frank analysis
Links worth analysis

Allah’s Governance On Earth
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Study of Sharh al-'Aqida al-Tahawiyya
Malik's Muwatta - Sh. Suhaib Hassan
In Pursuit of Allah's Pleasure
Islah.info
Live Anti Saudi Radio (Arabic)
Milestone by Syed Qutb R.A.

Hizbul Islam Charging "tax' of Khat Trucks

Mogadishu (Alshahid) – The drivers of the vehicles that transport Khat (a stimulant leaves chewed by most Somalis) from Afgoye town to the capital Mogadishu complained about the money that Hizbul Islam militias take from them.

The drivers said that Hizbul Islam militias have several check points on the highway that connects Afgoye to Mogadishu and every militia group in those check points ask for money to allow the vehicles pass.

The Hizbul Islam police chief in Afgoye Mohamed Hassan Omar who talked to the reporters in Mogadishu denied the complains saying that only Somali Shilling 300 are taken from each vehicle and that amount goes to the road maintenance.

Mr. Omar said that any vehicle which doesn’t comply with the rules of Hizbul Islam will not use the road.

Swedish Recruiting

Stockholm (Alshahid) – The former Somalia Premier Nuur Hassan Hussein (Nuur Adde) who is currently serving as the Somalia’s ambassador to the European Union on Saturday addressed a gathering the Swedish capital of Stockholm which was attended by a large number of Somalis who live in that city.

Ambassador Nuur Adde talked at lengthy about the peace conference held at Djibouti that led to the formation of TFG led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed accusing the western governments of failing to honor their pledged support for the TFG.

Mr. Nuur urged the Somalis in the Diaspora to tell the governments of their host nations about the real situation in Somalia.

The Ambassador told the attendants that his office will soon launch the issuing of the new Somali passports in the European countries starting with Italy.

alsahid Network

Pakistani Clerics and Shabaab Recruiting Efforts

Small footnotes to the following CS Monitor article is the specialization of Southern Somalia al Shabaab Training Camps, the recruiting of "wives" for fighters, and Pakistani clerics leading, (and possibly paying signing bonunses) for al Shabaab Recruits.

-Shimron Issachar


When Dahir Abdi joined the Somali extremist group Al-Shabab early last year, his motive had more to do with money than with God.

Back home in the Barawa district of southern Somalia, his parents and younger brothers and sisters were living on less than a single meal per day. His mother was too weak to fetch firewood to sell in the market, and too poor to buy the all-covering veil that was now required by Al-Shabab.

So when a recruiter from Al Shabab (whose name means “the youth” in Arabic) gave him $400 and the promise of a regular salary, Dahir joined willingly. He knew that even if he didn’t survive the war, his family would have a better chance to ward off starvation.

By the time Dahir arrived for six months of training at a camp in the densely forested southern coastal town of Ras Kiamboni, it was clear that he was just one of hundreds of young recruits preparing for war. It was clear, too, that deserting from Shabab – which has declared its allegiance to Al Qaeda – would be dangerous.

“When they recruited me, I was told I am going to fight against the African Union troops and against the Transitional Government, which didn’t want an Islamic government,” says Dahir, a talkative young man with a lean frame, who deserted Al Shabab late last year and now lives in hiding. Looking nervously from side to side as he spoke with a reporter in the Dagahley refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, he continues. “I was given $400 before I left home, and this I gave to my father and bid my family goodbye. They didn’t want me to leave. My father looked at me in tears and prayed for my safe homecoming.”

When the government of Somalia launches its long-threatened offensive against Al Shabab, it will be young men like Dahir who will be in the front lines, recruited by unscrupulous businessmen, trained by Pakistani, Afghan and Arab experts, and guided by a harsh ideology of jihad promulgated by Al Qaeda and its Islamist followers.

Al Shabab losing its appeal?

Somalia has been largely ungoverned for nearly 20 years, so the appeal of a hard-talking government based on religion has strong appeal in certain quarters. But the testimonies of several Al Shabab deserters interviewed by the Monitor shows that the Islamist militia is built less on a firm ideology – seen by many Somalis to be alien to their understanding of Islam — than on a combination of monetary lures and threats.

“Everybody hates to die, and everybody wants to go to heaven, but to go to heaven, you have to die: that is what they tell recruits,”

says Omar Sharif, a Somali businessman who travels between Mogadishu and Nairobi, and who has family members on both sides of the looming fight. “Shabab is in a decline right now, because people are not happy with what they are doing, but they still have a strong impact on youths inside the country, as well as here in Kenya.”

Yet as long as Somalia remains war-torn, and as long as Somalis remain poor, Shabab will be able to find willing fighters, Mr. Sharif says. “Somalis have a lot of children, and the school system is destroyed, so for many poor families, the madrassas (religious schools) are the only option where children can get at least a basic education. That is where Shabab goes to recruit.”

Virtually unknown four years ago, Al Shabab has rapidly grown to become the strongest military force in Somalia, imposing its own selective interpretation of Islamic law on the southern half of Somalia that is under its control. Al Shabab troops in the very heart of Mogadishu prevent the weak Western-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed from extending its authority beyond a few square blocks of the capital, along with the airport and Mogadishu’s seaport.

Estimates of Shabab’s fighting force are quite small, often around 3000 trained fighters with perhaps another 3000 untrained and poorly armed militia members providing logistical support. Mixed into this ragtag army are perhaps 200 foreign fighters – including Afghans, Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens, and even a few white American converts — attracted to Al-Shabab by the promise of establishing and defending a “pure” Islamic state, as described by the Prophet Mohammed in the Quran.

Shabab’s strongholds are in the lower third of the country, from the borders of Kenya and Ethiopia and over to the coastal cities of Mogadishu and Kismayo. Shabab deserters say different camps specialize in different types of training.

The Al Faruq Brigades, who train at Elberde in the Hiraan region, for instance, trains suicide bombers, as does the Salahudeen unit in the Huriwa district of Mogadishu. The Muaskar Faruq base in Ras Kiamboni specializes in automatic weapons and hand-to-hand combat, while the Eel Aarfid base specializes in training kidnapping skills.

Liban Elmi, a 30-year-old recruit from Nairobi, was jobless and attending a religious school, or madrassa, when he was recruited by an cousin to join Al-Shabab. His cousin’s selling point was simple and direct: Since Mr. Elmi was an orphan with few job prospects, it would be better for him to go up north to his family’s ethnic homeland and fight an Islamic war of liberation than to continue living off his relatives.

“I was desperate, and I was convinced to join because I had nothing else to do,” says Elmi, speaking to a reporter in a private home in Dadaab, close to the refugee camp where he lives.

• The recruiters told him to change his image, stop shaving, and to start chewing khat, a leaf that has mildly narcotic qualities.
• In this way, when he disappeared, people would just assume that he had simply gone astray, rather than gone to join a pious religious movement like Al Shabab.
• Crossing into Somalia on foot, he and a group of 40 other recruits travelled with a group of Pakistani clerics to the town of Ras Kiamboni.
• It was there that Elmi joined a fighting unit, and got training in the use of AK-47s and in martial arts. Within weeks of the end of training, Elmi was sent to Mogadishu, where he quickly found himself on the front lines.
• In heavy fighting last August, a bullet struck Elmi in his right leg, which later had to be amputated by a Shabab doctor. He now hobbles around on an artificial leg that was purchased in Nairobi, but fitted onto him at a Shabab hospital in Mogadishu.
  
  “Now, I’m looking for a way to sustain myself,” he says, bitterly. “I can’t join them again, because even though it’s possible to fix my leg to allow me to fight in combat again, Al Shabab won’t spend the money on me because I’m a foreign fighter. I still resent my cousin, who told me to join.”
  
  Young women are not exempt from Al Shabab recruitment. In the displacement camps on both sides of the Kenyan-Somali border, older women travel from tent to tent, encouraging impoverished families to give their daughters to the holy struggle, or jihad.
  
  “The women tell our parents, ‘Before a man is given a gun, he must be given a woman, so that he can leave something behind,’” says Shamis Abdulaziz, a 25-year-old, who is herself married to an Al-Shabab fighter. “They say, ‘There is no need for you at home. Get married to the mujahideen who are fighting in the fields.’”
  
  Ms. Abdulaziz left her family in Afmadow, a district of southern Somalia, as a willing Shabab recruit. She had been told she would receive training in collecting intelligence, in carrying explosives, and driving supplies from one camp to another. On arrival at the Shabab camp near Afmadow, each girl was told to take off her shoes and put them in a pile. A few minutes later, Shabab fighters walked into the tent and chose a shoe at random. The owner of that shoe became his wife.
  
  “They told us it was our responsibility on behalf of the jihad,” says Abdulaziz proudly. “Now,” she says, “I am one of those women, who convinces young women to marry a young Shabab fighter.”
  
  ____
  
  The Rest By CSMonitor by way of the Bartamaha

Shimron Issachar
On Twitter

Hizbul Islam and al Shabaab Fight Again in Kismayo

Kismayo (Alshahid)- Fresh fighting erupted in the border town of Dhoobley early on Tuesday as forces loyal to the insurgent group of Hizbul Islam attacke the town which is controlled by Alshabab forces.

The residents of the town said that the fighting broke out when Hizbul Islam forces led by Sheikh Ahmed Madobe attacked the town from the direction of the Kenyan border.
The Alshabab forces in the town fought back and were able to drive back the attackers.
The actual figure of the casualties is not yet clear as both fighting groups declined to comment about the fight.

Alshabab and Hizbul Islam both fight the TFG and AMISOM but at the same time battle over the control of Jubba regions.

Source Al Sahid

Long War Update in The Horn and Yemen

Gulf of Aden Security Review - April 12, 2010
Yemen:

Yemen says it has not received U.S. intelligence on al Awlaki’s location; four al Houthi rebels on trial in Yemen for spying for Iran; Yemeni tribe warns U.S. against killing al Awlaki; Yemeni Foreign Minister says al Awlaki is not a terrorist; father offers deal for al Awlaki’s removal from list; protests continue in Dhale

Horn of Africa:

Bush official: President Obama’s policy towards Somalia remains the same as predecessor; Dahabshiil guards reject disarmament attempts by Hizb al Islam; BBC responds to al Shabaab censoring; hundreds of Somali refugees reach Somali-Kenyan border town; civilians arrested in Galga'o for breaking curfew

Yemen Security Brief

Yemeni authorities say they are looking for the radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki, but have received no American intelligence about his whereabouts or role within al Qaeda. The Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al Qirbi did not elaborate on the steps taken to apprehend al Awlaki, but mentioned an air strike in December on an al Qaeda meeting where the cleric was reportedly in attendance.[i]

Four men associated with the al Houthi movement in northern Yemen are being tried on suspicions of spying for Iran. The men are charged with passing “photographs of security installations, military camps, ports, islands and maritime installations” to Iran. The four were also accused of “receiving funds, supplies and arms from different parties and delivering them to the Houthis.”[ii]

Anwar al Awlaki’s tribe in Yemen threatened violence against anyone who harms him. The threat by the al Awaliq tribe is ostensibly aimed at the United States, which recently placed al Awlaki on its capture or kill list. The tribe is located mainly in Abyan and Shabwah governorates in southern Yemen.[iii]

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al Qirbi said in a statement Saturday that Yemen does not consider Anwar al Awlaki a terrorist. He also said that Yemeni authorities have no contact with the cleric.[iv]

Anwar al Awlaki’s father has promised the cleric will cease activity against the United States if he is taken off the capture or kill list. It is unclear whether Nasser al Awlaki, the former president of the University of Sana’a, made the statement with his son’s consent.[v]

Protests against the government continued on Monday in Dhale as a general strike shut down all economic activity in the city. Two explosions were heard near schools with no reported casualties. Gunfire was also heard sporadically throughout the city. Additional protests were held on Sunday in Dhale, Lahij, Abyan, and Aden.[vi]

Horn of Africa Brief

Jendayi E. Frazer, former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under the Bush Administration, stated President Obama is applying the same policies towards Somalia as President Bush. Frazer also commented on the upcoming TFG offensive in Mogadishu stating she does not anticipate any significant changes to occur.[vii]

Security guards at the Dahabshiil Bureau in Mogadishu's Bakara market have resisted disarmament attempts by Hizb al Islam forces. Dahabshiil officials stated fighters from Hizb al Islam “stormed” the bureau on Saturday in attempt to disarm the guards; however, the Islamist forces were met with such strong resistance, business were forced to close for an hour.[viii]

In response to al Shabaab’s BBC ban, BBC Africa head, Jerry Timmins, stated BBC always addresses all sides in the conflict, including al Shabaab, and adheres “to strict standards of impartiality and editorial independence” and rejects anything which suggests otherwise. Timmins also stated, “It is essential for the people of Somalia that the BBC is allowed to continue to report accurately and impartially on the situation in the country without undue interference from anyone.”[ix]

Hundreds of Somali families who fled the fighting in Mogadishu and southern Somalia have reached the Somali-Kenyan border town of Dhobley, which is controlled by the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab.[x]

Four civilians from the Hormar neighborhood, in the town of Galga'o in the Mudug region, have been arrested by Mudug police forces for violating the imposed night curfew, which was put in place to assure the “security of the towns, districts and villages under the control of Galmudug State.” Mudug police forces stated the detained civilians will be brought before a court and sentenced.[xi]

The Rest @ Critical Threats




Shimron Issachar
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Iran gets chemical Warheads for its al Mahdaviaya Attack Plan

Iran has reportedly been building an attack plan which would Occupy Iraq and occupy Jordan, among other countries. The plan, code named Al-Mahdaviya has apparently been underway for some time, and is regularly updated. I personally believe the plan, as reported, is too ambitious to accomplish soon, and will require a generation to implement. The details, if true provides great insight into the plans of the Shiite government, if not the people. Those looking at the evidence that such a plan is underway would note that Iran has been successfully accumulating weapons to support such an attack.

For example, there is a recent report that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards has armed its Russian SS4 surface-to-surface missiles with chemical warheads.

According to the report, the chemicals in the warheads are mustard, sarin, and cyanide gas; the missiles have a range of 2,000 km and are aimed at the Gulf countries and other Arab countries.

There are many sources for the report but they all seem to all draw on the March 3, 2010 report of the Kuwaiti daily paper Al-Siyassa which allegedly quoted an anti-Iran Ahwazi group called The Islamic Sunni-Ahwazi Organization.

In Africa, the question is a serious one: Does Iran plan to invade and occupy its neighbors?

-Shimron Issachar

Ahwazi Organization: Iran Is Threatening Gulf States with SSMs Armed with Chemical Warheads

Add to this the report that Iran has been building an offense plan code named Al-Mahdaviya . Ipersonally believe the plan is too ambishous to accomplish soon, and will require a generation to implement.

On March 3, 2010, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa published a report[1] by an anti-Iran Ahwazi group called The Islamic Sunni-Ahwazi Organization, which said that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had armed its Russian SS4 surface-to-surface (SSM) missiles with chemical warheads. According to the report, the chemicals in the warheads are mustard, sarin, and cyanide gas; the missiles have a range of 2,000 km and are aimed at the Gulf countries and other Arab countries.[2] It also stated that the IRGC has stepped up biological weapons research at the Damghan laboratories.
The Ahwazi group also claimed in the report that Iran has a military project called Al-Mahdaviya under which Iran would occupy Iraq as well as Jordan by advancing along five axes. The main points of the plan include the use of the Arab Ahwaz district as a forward operating base and jumping-off point for the occupation; the plan also has intelligence, economic, and cultural/propaganda aspects. The organization stated in the report that Iran is planning to uproot millions of the Arab residents of western Ahwaz so that it can secure the border with Iraq, and defend its oil and gas fields in the region.
Ahwazi Organization: The IRGC Armed SS4 Missiles with Fragmentation Warheads and with Sarin, Mustard, and Cyanide Gas
The report states that in its striving for regional hegemony, Iran is using terrorism, developing nuclear, missile, and satellite projects, and operating on military, propaganda, and sectarian levels. The group added in the report that it had uncovered an Iranian plan to turn Ahwaz province, with the largest Sunni Arab population in Iran, into a military intelligence base, and to send a large number of Iranian Shi’ite clerics to the province to wage a sectarian propaganda campaign and to brainwash young Arabs there. According to the report, the plan is aimed at using the Arab province as a base for gathering information and spying against the Arab countries in the Gulf, using espionage networks based there, and in order to threaten the security of Iraq and of the Gulf.
The report quotes an IRGC source who confirmed that the SS4 SSMs had all been brought to the Kalla Doz (sic) military factory near the city of Karaj, which is suspected of carrying out nuclear and chemical activity. The source also said that conventional warheads for some of these missiles had been brought to the Aghajari military chemical plant, located east of Ahwaz between the cities of Al-Amidiyya and Behabahan, where these warheads had been armed with fragmentation charges and with Sarin, mustard, and cyanide gas manufactured in Iranian factories capable of an output of several tons of these substances.
According to the source, in the summer of 2008, IRGC commands had received secret orders to set up the missiles on moving platforms near the cities of Al-Hamidiyya and Al-Khafajiyya, and to aim them at the Arab Gulf states. He said that the missiles could reach targets such as ports, airports, and oil and gas industrial zones, and that they had especially deadly potential against population centers.
The source confirmed that the IRGC is again working on construction and expansion of the military Darkhovin plants, and that the plant closest to the cities of Abadan and Al-Falahiyya and to the Karun River, which operates on light water, would be completed in 2013. The report said that the plant, which is about 7 square km in area, is operating secretly as part of Iran’s nuclear program.
The report states that on November 29, 2009, the Ahwazi group’s field command had warned in the Kuwaiti Al-Siyassa daily that dozens of Chinese and Russian experts and scientists specializing in the manufacture of conventional and biological weapons were already at work in “secret camps” near the Darhkovin facilities. According to the report, the source added that Iran had a wide-scale germ warfare program, of which the Lavizan site north of Tehran had been the most important element until it was uncovered.
The report said that currently the IRGC is stepping up research for its military biological project at the Damghan laboratory in Samnan.
Ahwazi Organization: Iraq Has Military Plan for Invading Iraq and Jordan along Five Routes of Advance
The report states that in 2005, the IRGC operational headquarters prepared a plan for attacking Jordan via Iraq, and that a map outlining this plan was leaked to the Ahwazi organization in May of that year. The organization assesses that the plan was formulated following Iran’s success in training death squads in Iraq and in spreading anarchy there, and following the warnings voiced in December 2004 by Jordanian King ‘Abdallah II regarding the threat posed by the “Shi’ite Iranian crescent” in the region.
The five axes of advance detailed in the report are: 1. Piranshahr to Rowanduz; 2. Ghasre-Shirin to Khanaqin; 3. Mehran to Al-Kut; 4. Ahwazi Basatin to Al-Amara; 5. Abadan to Basra. The report claims that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei approved the plan and instructed the IRGC to prepare for its implementation, and that it was subsequently updated to include additional countries.
The goals of the Mahdaviya project, according to the report, include the following: suppressing the Sunni movements in Iran, especially the Ahwazi movements operating in the west of the country and the Balouchi movements operating in the east, and quashing their military activity against the Iranian regime; preparing for mass abductions and killings of dissidents in Ahwaz province; disguising the wide-scale settlement and transfer activities being carried out in Ahwaz by the Iranian regime; militarizing Ahwaz and turning it into a sectarian protectorate and forward base for intelligence and military activity, in order to promote Iran’s political and military goals in the region; carrying out structured propaganda campaigns in the Arabian Gulf and the Middle East, aimed at inculcating a spirit of defeatism and submission to Iran as an imperial force and at spreading Shi’ite thought throughout the Arabian Gulf; turning Ahwaz into a safe haven for all the Iranian-aided movements in the region, and into a stronghold for most of the Iranian associations and organizations operating in Arab countries, according to the model of the movements and parties that Iran has planted in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
Citing the IRGC source, the report adds that Mohammad Mousavi Jazayeri, who is Khamenei’s representative in Ahwaz and the acting governor of the province, directs the Mahdaviya project and the wide-scale campaign for spreading the Shi’a throughout the Gulf region.
Ahwazi Organization: Regime Leaders and Senior IRGC and Intelligence Officials Held Secret Meeting in Ahwaz
The report says that the project’s military-intelligence dimension was secretly put into action in 2003 on direct orders from Khamenei, and was expanded after a March 2006 meeting between Khamenei and Jazayeri during the former’s visit to Ahwaz. It is also claimed that leaders of the Iranian regime held a large conference in the province in April 2009. At the periphery of this conference, which was chaired by Jazayeri, a small group of regime leaders and senior IRGC and intelligence officials met at the Basij headquarters in Ahwaz, located at a university in the province’s administrative capital. Among those present were Ali Shafei, a commander of the Iranian Hizbullah in Ahwaz; Mohsen Araki, former head of the revolutionary courts in the province; Ali Fallahian, founder of the Islamic Republic party and former Iranian intelligence minister; and Mohsen Khaidari, Friday prayer leader in Ahwaz.
It is stated that a committee was formed to facilitate the implementation of the sectarian-intelligence plan, supervised by Jazayeri and headed by Majid Alavi. The latter, the report says, operated in Saudi Arabia and Sudan for eight years as a secret agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. Shortly after the April 2009 meeting, in July 2009, he was appointed acting Intelligence Minister in Ahmadinejad’s government, following the resignation of Mohseni-Ajei.
It is claimed that IRGC official Ali Qomi, former Iranian consul in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was placed in charge of the project’s financial committee, while Mohammad Hossein Faroughi, former charge d’affair in the Iranian representation in Kuwait, was appointed as the project’s first director in the Gulf, in charge of recruiting personnel outside Iran and coordinating the activity of various Iranian networks in the region.
At the April 2009 meeting, the participants approved Jazayeri’s proposal to establish the project headquarters in Ahwaz and to place Ali Fallahian in charge of the project’s security aspects. (His other tasks, according to the report, include overseeing the training of foreign recruits alongside Hizbullah members in camps in western Ahwaz, smuggling arms into specific areas in the Gulf, and arranging visas for operatives entering and departing Iran).
The report also claims that Ruhollah Hosseinian, a security advisor to Ahmadinejad and one of the founders of the armed Iranian organization Ansar-e Hizbullah, “who has expertise in the area of assassinations and abductions,” has been appointed acting commander of Ansar-e Hizbullah in Ahwaz. Working under his command is General Sarhank Karim Karimi Tebah, a senior official in Iran’s foreign intelligence apparatus, who in 2002-2006 operated in Saudi Arabia as a spy for the IRGC.
It is claimed further that Hosseinian appointed senior IRGC official Hassan Farhan Oda Khaledi as commander of the Fedayan-e Imam-i Ali organization, whose headquarters are located in Ahwaz. This is a secret military-intelligence organization founded in July 2007, whose members operate in plainclothes. Two thousand of them participated in training activities of the Ashura Brigades in Darkhovin in November 2009.
Ahwazi Organization: The Regime Plans to Iranize Ahwaz
The report also refers to the project’s cultural and propaganda dimensions, and the plan to Iranize Ahwaz. It claims that, under Jazayeri’s supervision, clerics and mosque imams use various media outlets to spread Shi’ite and pro-regime propaganda, as part of an attempt to carry out a comprehensive cultural revolution in the province. It further states that there is a plan to evacuate 15 villages and cities in Ahwaz, inhabited by some four million Arabs, for the purpose of converting Basatin into a tourism and free trade hub with an international airport. This, in order to create investment opportunities for IRGC-owned companies, and in order to replace the area’s Sunni Arab population with Shi’ites, with an eye to protecting the province’s numerous oil and gas fields.
Endnotes:
[1] Al-Siyassa (Kuwait), March 3, 2010. http://www.al-seyassah.com/Portals/0/pdf/10/Mar/03/29.pdf
[2] It should be noted that in a May 10, 2008 Friday sermon, Expediency Council Secretary Hashemi Rafsanjani indicated that Iran possessed chemical weapon capabilities, but said that it had chosen not to employ them during the Iran-Iraq war despite Iraq’s use of such weapons against Iran. Rafsanjani said: “In our battles with the Saddam [Hussein] regime, we proved that we do not use forbidden and unconventional weapons. [The Iraqis] targeted us with chemical weapons for years, and even now there are daily reports in our press about deaths resulting from [those] chemical attacks. Years have passed, but people are still suffering from [the consequences] of these attacks. Iran could have retaliated in kind, but refrained from doing so in order to avoid harming the Iraqi people. www.dnf.ir, May 10, 2008.

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