Iran Steps Up Security Before Islamic Revolution Rally
THE GUARDIAN: Tehran sentences another activist to death and several others are arrested ahead of national day demonstrations

Large numbers of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have been deployed across Tehran, claim opposition sources, before tomorrow's anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Photo: The Guardian
Iranian security forces are deploying in strength in Tehran and across the country to head off what opposition supporters hope will be massive protests to mark tomorrow's anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

New arrests were announced today after another death sentence was handed down for a convicted "rioter" and large numbers of Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia arrived in the capital from outlying areas, opposition sources reported.

Official preparations to deal with the latest bout of internal unrest coincide with mounting international tensions after Barack Obama accused Iran on Tuesday of trying to build a nuclear weapon and warned it would face new sanctions within weeks.
The regime has repeatedly accused opposition supporters of serving foreign interests. >>> Ian Black, Middle East editor | Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Hamas Wages Iran’s Proxy War on Israel
THE SUNDAY TIMES: A Hamas leader admits hundreds of his fighters have travelled to Tehran

The Hamas commander was in a hurry. Hunched forward in a navy-blue parka, with the wind-chapped skin and drawn eyes of someone who had been outdoors all night, he had just returned from the front line with Israel. The whine of drones overhead signalled that his enemy was hunting for blood.

For someone who had survived the fiercest fighting between Israelis and Palestinians since 2000 and the deaths of scores of his fellow fighters, the commander, already a senior figure in his late twenties, appeared remarkably composed.

He is in the vanguard of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas which is growing into a disciplined army, trained to fight for victory rather than be consigned to the “martyr’s death” of the suicide bomber.

Israel has long insisted that Iran is behind this training. Last week Yuval Diskin, the head of the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, said as much when he claimed that Hamas had “started to dispatch people to Iran, tens and a promise of hundreds”. He provided no evidence.

The Hamas commander, however, confirmed for the first time that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been training its men in Tehran for more than two years and is currently honing the skills of 150 fighters.

The details he gave suggested that, if anything, Shin Bet has underestimated the extent of Iran’s influence on Hamas’s increasingly sophisticated tactics and weaponry. Hamas wages Iran’s proxy war on Israel >>> By Marie Colvin in Gaza City

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