Iranian general: Our finger on war trigger

Enemies 'are all within range of the resistance fire'

By Reza Kahlili

With Western pressure growing on Bashar Assad over the latest massacres of defenseless women and children in Syria, Iranian officials again are warning the world against any action against the Middle East dictator.

The pro-Assad “resistance” has its finger on the trigger and the aggressors will not survive the conflict, a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazaeri, told Mashregh, a media outlet run by the Guards. Iranian officials often refer to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as the resistance front.

Mashregh reported in March that Iran’s armed forces had formed a joint war room that included officers from Syria, Iran and Hezbollah for a coordinated military response to an attack on Syria.

“A conflict in Syria will engulf the region and its main victims will be the people of Syria themselves,” Jazaeri warned the protesters. “The Zionist regime and the interests of the enemies of Syria are all within range of the resistance fire.”

Citing a conspiracy to weaken the resistance front and that foreign hands were involved in the events in Syria, Jazaeri said, “At the right time, people of the region will retaliate against these actions. The defeat of the enemy at this stage will be a big event and, God willing, we will witness that.”

There have been several reports alluding to the Revolutionary Guards’ involvement in the Syrian suppression. Recently the deputy commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Cmdr. Esmail Ghani, said his forces have been playing a “physical and nonphysical” role in Syria.

The Guards last year called Syrian protesters “rabble-rousers” who are “puppets of Zionists and the United States” and that their chanting slogans against Iran and Hezbollah “will be their last stand.”

On Thursday, U.N. observers were fired upon as they tried to reach the site of the latest massacre of civilians, many of them women and children, who were shot or stabbed, the fourth such massacre in two weeks. More than 10,000 civilians have so far lost their lives in the brutal suppression ordered by Assad and abetted by Iran and Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s Basij militia made clear that Iran will not tolerate the fall of Assad.

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for human rights abuses in Iran, told Lebanese TV Al Manar, “After the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and the disruption to their defensive posture in protecting the Zionist regime, America in order to defend the regime of the occupier of the Quds (Jerusalem) is after a new scenario in Syria. … But they will be defeated.”

The Basij commander warned Israel against any attack on Iran or Syria, stating, “Today all the people of the region are ready for wiping out this cancerous tumor, and reaction to any aggression will be the freedom of Quds.”

Naghdi also said the West was wrong in believing that international sanctions against Iran will force the Islamic republic to accept demands that it yield on its clandestine nuclear program.

“Sanctions have had a lot of effect on Iran, but one positive one is the growth of science and internal production. … If the American president did not have his hands in the blood of nations of the world, specifically Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine, and had not embraced torture, we would have given him a national medal for his service to the Iranian nation for imposing sanctions.”

Naghdi predicted that America will be forced to pack up and leave the region, taking with it all of its forces.

The mullahs ruling Iran, based on centuries-old hadiths, believe that an attack on Syria and Iran and an ensuing counterattack on Israel will trigger the coming of “Mahdi,” the Shiites’ 12th imam and the last Islamic messiah. Both those events are looking increasingly likely as Assad continues to murder his own people and Iran continues its quest for nuclear weapons.

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Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and author of the award-winning book, “A Time to Betray.” He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy. He also is a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security.

Obama Backs Away From ‘Fine’ Comment

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

President Obama on Friday afternoon backed away from his earlier comments that the “private sector is doing fine,” telling reporters that he does not believe the economy is doing fine.

“That’s precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference,” Mr. Obama said in brief remarks to reporters during a meeting with the visiting Philippines president.

Republicans had seized on comments Mr. Obama made during an earlier news conference, in which he repeatedly made the point that hiring at private businesses is doing well, while hiring by state and local government is not.

“The private sector is doing fine,” Mr. Obama said at the news conference.

But by later in the day, Mr. Obama had decided to emphasize that he does not believe that the overall economy is doing fine, as Republicans were trying to suggest.

“Listen, it is absolutely clear the economy is not doing fine,” he said. He suggested that Republicans had misstated his words from earlier in the day.

“I think if you look at what I said this morning, what I’ve been saying consistently over the last year, we’ve actually seen some good momentum in the private sector,” he said. “There’s been 4.3 million jobs created, 800,000 this year alone, record corporate profits.”

He added: “And so that has not been the biggest drag on the economy.”

Mr. Obama said the economy “needs to be strengthened,” adding that “I believe that there are a lot of Americans who are hurting right now, which is what I’ve been saying for the last year, two years, three years, what I’ve been saying since I came into office.”

Sinkhole swallows minibus in S China

By People's Daily Online

A sinkhole engulfed a minibus Thursday morning in Guilin, south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, injuring the vehicle's driver. The incident was a geological disaster that happened around 4 a.m. on Fuxing Road in the city's Qixing district. It left a big hole which is 4 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and 2 meters deep. The driver, the only person in the minibus, was being treated in hospital.

Gay Pride festivities kick off in Tel Aviv

By YONI COHEN

Parade will include a procession of floats and organized groups of marchers; tens of thousands expected to take part.

The streets of Tel Aviv were filled with rainbow-colored pride flags on Friday as thousands of people were taking part in the annual Gay Pride March.

The festivities began at 10 a.m. with a community happening at Meir Park with musical performances, celebrity appearances and speeches by public figures such as Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz and Labor leader Shelly Yechimovich.

The parade itself began at 1 p.m. and included a procession of floats and organized groups of marchers accompanied by thousands of supporters waving pride flags and enjoying the fine summer weather. The parade will leave Meir Park, travel down Bugrashov Street then pass through Ben Yehuda Street onto Arlozorov Street, ending with a beach party at Gordon Beach at 3 p.m. Appearing on the central stage at Gordon Beach will be some of Tel Aviv's top DJs including Offer Nissim, Tal Cohen and Avihai Partok. Internationally recognized Israeli musicians Ivri Lider and Jonny Goldstein, the two main members of the pop-dance group The Young Professionals, will be hosting Uriel Yekutiel on stage.

A number of major streets were closed to traffic during the time of the parade including Bugrashov Street, Ben Yehuda Street between Bugrashov and Jabotinsky as well as parts of Arlozorov Street closest to the beach.

Thousands of tourists arrived in Tel Aviv over the past week to take part in activities gearing up to the main parade. Hilton Beach was decorated with gay pride flags and chill out music has entertained locals and tourists alike. The beach, which is popular among the local gay community, hosted some of the top DJs from the city's leading clubs.

This year the pride events were held under the banner "Pride Flags Countrywide." Though the central events are in Tel Aviv, everyone in the country should be able to walk the streets with pride, the Tel Aviv mayor's advisor on Gay Community Affairs explained recently.

"The message that we chose this year actually casts spotlight outside the city, on the periphery and the periphery's connection with Tel Aviv-Jaffa as Israel's secular and gay capital," Yaniv Weizman, who is also a member of the City Council, told reporters in Tel Aviv. "Most of the gays, lesbians and transgenders who currently live in Tel Aviv were not born in the city and have strengthened our pride by coming from all over the country."

Last year an estimated 100,000 people took part in the parade, carrying colorful banners calling for equality under the banner “Being gay is ‘shaveh’ [worthwhile/ equal]. Organizers expect similar numbers this year.

Jerusalem to become Egypt’s capital under Mursi’s rule, says Muslim cleric

If Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi became president, Egypt’s new capital will no more be Cairo, but the new capital will be Jerusalem, a prominent Egyptian cleric said at a presidential campaign rally, which was aired by an Egyptian private TV channel.

“Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem with God’s will. Our chants shall be: ‘millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem’,” prominent cleric Safwat Hagazy said, according to the video aired by Egypt’s religious Annas TV on Tuesday.

The video went viral after being posted on YouTube – accompanied by English subtitles by Memri TV –, with 61,691 views until Thursday night.

“The United States of the Arabs will be restored on the hands of that man [Mursi] and his supporters. The capital of the [Muslim] Caliphate will be Jerusalem with God’s will,” Hegazy said, as the crowds cheered, waving the Egyptian flags along with the flags of the Islamist Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip.

“Tomorrow Mursi will liberate Gaza,” the crowds chanted.

“Yes, we will either pray in Jerusalem or we will be martyred there,” Hegazy said.

Hegazy’s speech came during a presidential campaign rally at the Egyptian Delta city of Mahalla, where Mursi attended along with the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badei and members of the group and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

Mursi will challenge Egypt’s former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq in the election run-off, scheduled on June 16 and 17. Shafiq, an air force general, was the country’s last prime minister before former president Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down by a popular uprising in February 2011.

A court on Saturday sentenced the former ruler and his interior minister to life imprisonment for their role in the killings of up to 850 protesters in the January 25 uprising that ended Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Six senior police officers were acquitted for lack of evidence.

 The verdicts were met by angry street protests by Egyptians who considered them too lenient and demanded a purge of the judiciary.

 Members of the Islamist-dominated parliament attacked the verdicts, accusing the court of ignoring the rights of peaceful protesters killed in the uprising.

Hegazy led thousands of protesters at Cairo’s iconic Tarir Square against the verdicts. Protesters also called for the endorsing of the ‘Political Isolation Law’ that could bar political figures from Mubarak era, including Shafiq, from joining political life in the country for some years.

Endorsing the law, which will be decided by Cairo Supreme Constitutional Court on June 14, two days before the election run-off, could push Shafiq out of the presidential race.

For activists, choosing Shafiq would symbolize a return to the old regime and an end to the revolution. Voting for Mursi, on the other hand, would mean handing Egypt to an Islamic movement they say has monopolized power since the uprising.