Archive for month: October, 2015

The private screening was held on Wednesday morning by the Foreign Media Department of Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance at Farhang Movie Theater in northern Tehran.

The screening session was attended by around 120 foreign correspondents and media representatives including those of France’s Euronews and AFP (Agence France-Presse), Turkey’ Anadolu Agency, Japan’s NHK, the United States’ Wall Street Journal newspaper, Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV, and Spain’s EFE news agency.

A number of correspondents from other media outlets including Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen, Palestine Today, China’s Phoenix, Lebanon’s al-Manar and Asia, Kuwait news agency, and China’s Wenhui Daily also watched the movie.

Ambassadors and representatives of several countries including Tunisia, Kenya, Algeria, Afghanistan, Indonesia, the Azerbaijan Republic, Comoros, and Malaysia, among others, were also in attendance.

The guests watched the movie with simultaneous Arabic and English translation along with the film’s director Majidi and Iranian Deputy Culture Minister for Press and Information Hossein Entezami.

The movie, which is the first part of Iran’s big-budget trilogy on the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), premiered in cinemas across Iran on August 26, and attracted a large number of audiences.

A number of internationally-acclaimed professionals, including Academy Award winning visual effects supervisor and filmmaker Scott E. Anderson, three-time Oscar-winning Italian director of photography Vittorio Storaro and renowned Croat production designer Milijen Kreka Kljakovic have also collaborated in making the film.

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The Russian Air Force carried out more air strikes on 12 ISIL positions in Homs, Hama and Idleb as part of the agreement between Syria and Russia to eliminate the terrorists’ presence in Syria.

The Russian air operation in Syria started on Wednesday shortly after the upper house of the Russian parliament gave President Vladimir Putin the mandate to use military force in the Arab country upon President Bashar al-Assad’s request. 

Russia Today website quoted Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Maj. Igor Konashenkov as saying in a statement that “a terrorist HQ and an ammunition depot were destroyed near Idleb, as were a fortified three-level command center near Hama.”

“A direct bomb hit also completely destroyed a workshop north of Homs that produced explosives and ammunition,” he added, saying that at this workshop terrorists were stuffing vehicles with explosives, which were then used to carry out terrorist attacks.

20 air strikes targeted 8 ISIL positions in Syria on Wednesday, according to the Ministry. Those included ammunition warehouses and command and control centers.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense has described the country’s first airstrikes against the Takfiri ISIL terrorists in Syria as successful.

Eight positions of the terrorist group were targeted successfully during the raids, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday following the airstrikes.

“Ammunition depots, weapons, fuel and lubricants, accumulation of military equipment have been struck as a result of the airstrikes,” Konashenkov added.

He also said the command and control posts of Daesh in the area had been “completely destroyed,” emphasizing, however, that “the civilian infrastructure and the nearby territory was not stricken.”

In a relevant context, the Ministry announced that the Russian landing ships in the Mediterranean and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet forces will take part in the Russian air operation against terrorist organizations in Syria to protect the Russian military facilities in Tartous and Lattakia.

In the meantime, commander of a CIA-trained group told Reuters that two Russian air strikes in Syria Thursday hit a training camp operated by militant groups that received military training organized by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Hassan Haj Ali, head of the Liwa Suqour al-Jabal terrorist group, said the camp in Idleb province was struck by around 20 missiles in two separate sorties.

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After people watched the news of Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz sending a thank you letter to the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef “and all other officials, our sons of Security Men, their brothers and sisters in the governmental and civil apparatuses who participated in serving pilgrims of the Holy Mecca, for their honorable efforts and high discipline in serving the pilgrims the conditions that allow them perform their Hajj duty at ease and tranquility,” perhaps many of them remembered what was said by the Director of the Washington Institute’s Gulf and Energy Policy Program “Simon Henderson.”

Henderson said last year that the current Saudi King suffers from difficulty in mental concentration (Alzheimer.) So did the King consequently forget the stampede accident in that took place less than a week ago, which killed (according to Saudi records) around 769 Hajjs, injured 934 others, as well as 600 pilgrims who are still lost till the moment, and still he considers that the Hajj performance of this year was accompanied with “tranquility”?!

Besides everything, the thanks letter mentioned above shows the kingdom’s denial of its responsibility towards the victims, the wounded and the lost pilgrims of the Mina accident, their families and the countries they belong to, on the base of “as if it didn’t happen,” in addition to its responsibility towards all pilgrims who entered its land, to provide the highest levels of organization and good management of the pilgrimage performance.

Until the moment, the kingdom didn’t issue any official apologize, clarification or explanation for what happened. The kingdom also doesn’t show enough cooperation with the concerned countries as it caused the delay in the Iranian delegation’s arrival at its land because of denying them the urgent visas. In addition, they delayed sending the bodies of the victims to their countries to start the funeral processes.

Despite the tragedy, Saudi media played its role in spreading rumors; perhaps the most distinguished of them was saying that the Former Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghadhanfar Roknabadi has entered the Saudi lands under another name. Later on, Abadi’s visa was shown publicly, and so was the video showing him performing the rituals of denouncing the polytheists before the accident, which proved this media tells lies and raised the question of the authorities’ interests in spreading such kind of rumors.

Since this year’s Hajj season has witnessed “high discipline,” then why did the Saudi King issue few days ago some five royal orders to exempt the Minister of Pilgrimage, Director of General Security and three other high level officials from their jobs?

The dissociation on the level of royal orders, in addition to inconsistency on the level of the official toll of the victims is clear. It was suddenly announced on the website of “the Saudi Ministry of Health – General Directorate of Health Media and Relations”, and reported by the deputy Health Minister Hamad bin Mohammad Dwaile’ that the Mina accident’s victims hit 4173 pilgrims. The news was removed soon after, which reflects the clear confusing on the level of the kingdom’s dealing with the tragedy, either before it happened when they closed some ways in front of the pilgrims, which caused crowdedness that led to the stampede accident as it was reported by eyewitnesses, or after it happened when they couldn’t control the situation, and so many reasons that we have already mentioned. However, it is still the most provocative behavior to despise the souls of those who passed away, and that the head of the kingdom considered “ease and tranquility” had accompanied the pilgrims of the Holy Mecca this year.

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The Bahraini Foreign Ministry, in a statement issued on Thursday, said it asked the kingdom’s ambassador, Rashid Saad al-Dosari, to return, and declared the Iranian diplomat, Mohammad Reza Babaei, persona non grata and ordered him to depart in the light of what Manama alleged to be Tehran’s interference in the internal affairs of Bahrain.

The statement further accused Tehran of forming and arming groups opposed to Bahrain’s ruling Al Khalifa regime.

The decision was taken a day after Bahraini officials claimed they had arrested a number of people that allegedly had terror links with Iran and Iraq.

A Bahraini Interior Ministry statement said the Al Khalifa regime forces had also uncovered a large stash of weapons at a house in the village of Nuwaidrat, situated about 10 kilometers (six miles) south of the capital, Manama.

The cache purportedly included a ton and a half of powerful explosive materials, automatic rifles, pistols and hand grenades.

On September 13, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham dismissed as “baseless” allegations leveled by Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa against the Islamic Republic, urging Bahraini authorities to stop playing blame game and instead consider the settlement of the ongoing tensions there through “real political dialog.”

She added that the unfounded accusations against Iran are aimed at covering up the Arab country’s internal problems.

Since early 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations on the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa family to relinquish power.

Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds more injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.

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