Iran Government

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of Iran, inveighed Wednesday against liberal influences in Iran's government and said he would hold to his philosophy of "no East, no West." "As long as I am alive, I will not let the government fall to the liberals," Tehran Radio quoted Khomeini as saying. "I will not deviate from 'no East, no West principles.'

Tens of thousands of Iranians backing the country's rulers rallied in central Tehran on Wednesday, calling for the death of antigovernment protesters and opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Clad in black and holding portraits of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the government supporters chanted slogans for the Islamic Republic and against its opponents. "Death to Mousavi!" they chanted. "Death to opponents of velayet faqih ," a reference to Iran's theocratic political system.

American hostage Frank H. Reed was released Monday night from more than 3 1/2 years of captivity in Lebanon and turned over to U.S. authorities in Damascus. Reed's release came just eight days after the freeing of another American hostage, Robert Polhill, 55, a former accountant and business professor at Beirut University College. After being examined by a Syrian doctor at the U.S. ambassador's residence, Reed was flown by a medically equipped U.S.

Iran's capital erupted in chaos and violence today as anti-government protestors and security forces clashed on the 30th anniversary of the seizing of the U.S. Embassy by radical students. Today's demonstration did not appear to be as large as the huge marches that erupted following the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the protest, the largest in six weeks, struck at one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic by showing that a sizable chunk of Iranians disagree with hard-liners' anti-American agenda.

The government of Iran, in an unorthodox effort to ease its own budget deficit and make trouble for the American economy, is printing and circulating billions of dollars of counterfeit U.S. $100 bills, a congressional report charged Wednesday.

Four days after Iran promised Britain that it would not carry out a death edict against writer Salman Rushdie, conservatives inside the country lashed out at the deal, insisting Monday that the author of "The Satanic Verses" still must die for blasphemy.

One day after a violent police raid on a Tehran University dormitory, thousands of demonstrators protested Saturday outside the school, demanding the resignation of powerful hard-liners in Iran's Islamic government. "Death to despotism! Death to dictators!" protesters chanted in Tehran, according to witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity by telephone. By late Saturday, 25,000 people, students and others, had gathered. Their shouts of "students unite" reverberated in the night.

Iran's hard-line Council of Guardians finally announced election results for this capital city's 30 parliament seats Saturday, more than three months after the voting, declaring that 26 reformers linked to moderate President Mohammad Khatami had won along with two non-reformers. The 12-member committee dominated by clerics annulled the results of the remaining two races and ordered that they be re-contested later this year.

Three months after the first diplomatic opening in a generation between the United States and Iran, the Clinton administration is deeply concerned that rapprochement is now threatened by a fierce power struggle between Mohammad Khatami, the reformist Iranian president, and hard-line conservatives in his country. The effect of the escalating political battle was felt here this week as the White House scrambled to atone for the clumsy way U.S.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Wednesday made one of his nation's strongest overtures toward the United States since the Islamic Revolution, inviting American scholars, artists and tourists to visit to help create a "crack in the wall" of hostility dividing the two countries. But Khatami added that "a bulky wall of mistrust" remains and is too great for U.S.-sought government-to-government talks to have any chance for success at this time.

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday that he could not explain the apparent contradiction between a military dossier on Iranian interference in Iraq and comments by the Pentagon's top general. White House spokesman Tony Snow said that he had phoned Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and that there was no disagreement. A military official on Pace's staff said the general stood by his comments.

AUVERS-SUR-OISE, France -- The politics of war and terrorism have invaded Rue de Gordes, a sunny lane in this town where Van Gogh spent his last months and was laid to rest. Weakened by a hunger strike, dozens of Iranian protesters slump alongside walls lining the narrow street. They are tended to by women wrapped in Islamic head scarves, and by teenage girls with blond-tinted hair, jeans and T-shirts bearing photos of their leader, Maryam Rajavi.

The chief opponent of Iran's ruling clerics returned Saturday from the United States in a surprising gesture that could give fresh momentum to reformists facing a relentless crackdown. Ailing but still defiant, Ibrahim Yazdi promised to continue his efforts to bring more openness to Iranian society and weaken the grip of the conservative theocracy. "I'll have no political retirement. I will continue the previous policies.

Iran's main opposition movement has denied any involvement in terrorism and in the allegedly illegal fund-raising that drew the attention last week of authorities in Germany. "If the charges are that people in our organization have benefited from illegal fund-raising, that is an absolute lie," Farid Soleimani, media spokesman for the People's Moujahedeen of Iran, said Monday in a telephone interview from Paris.

In a sign of mounting frustration, students boldly demanded Saturday that Iran's reformist president take the offensive against conservatives blocking his drive for greater freedoms. "Show authority or resign!" some students shouted at President Mohammad Khatami during an address at Tehran University. Khatami promised that he would remain faithful to his reforms but said his hands were tied in the face of powerful Islamic hard-liners. "I may be criticized to have acted weakly and . . .

The United States publicly reached out Sunday to Iran, its long-standing nemesis, to play a role in the global coalition to fight terrorism. And despite two decades of hostility, Iran has sent unprecedented symbols of support on the issue of terrorism. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said recent Iranian statements are "worth exploring" to determine the scope of Tehran's potential role. Iran's position on the U.S.

In a major reversal after years of tentative openings, Iran is now moving to stifle the exchange of ideas in universities, the media, cultural circles and even mosques. The clampdown is a response to challenges to the clerical government's domination of all major aspects of everyday life. More startling still, the challenges are coming from the Islamic faithful themselves. Symbolizing the tension is the regime's crackdown on Abdol Karim Soroush, Iran's leading Islamic reformer and philosopher.

Reformist President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday denounced tougher Islamic rules imposed by Iran's hard-line judiciary, including widespread public floggings. "In a society in which there is discrimination, poverty and graft, you cannot expect youngsters not to break the law. . . . With tough punishments you cannot remove social corruption," Khatami told parliament. Since Khatami's landslide reelection in June, dozens of men have been publicly flogged for consuming alcohol and "harassing" women.

President Mohammad Khatami announced the proposed Cabinet for his second term, a conventional, moderate group of 20 men that disappointed supporters who had hoped for more outspoken reformers and Iran's first female Cabinet minister. Khatami was criticized in his first term for seating too many moderate conservatives on his Cabinet. Some did not strongly support his political and economic reforms, and the panel was often at odds with itself.