Shots fired at Iran protest rally - Iran- msnbc.com

Shots fired at Iran protest rally - Iran- msnbc.com

Obama stoked the fire of Hope and Change in Iran.
Of course when election fraud happened (as Obama likes) people are now angry to th epoint of rioting for 3 days. What has Obama done now to help?
NOTHING! He is so far out of his depth that he has no clue what to do.


TEHRAN, Iran - Shots were fired Monday at a rally by pro-reform presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, apparently by pro-government militia.




An Associated Press photographer saw one person shot dead and several others who appeared to be seriously wounded in Tehran's Azadi Square. The shooting came from a compound for volunteer militia linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard.

"There has been sporadic shooting out there ... I can see people running here," added a reporter of Iran's English-language Press TV.

An Iranian news photographer said protesters had attacked the compound, and that members of the Basij religious militia then opened fire.

Hundreds of thousands of Mousavi backers had defied an Interior Ministry ban to cheer their leader in his first public appearance since elections he claims were marred by fraud. The government says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election with 63 percent of the vote.

Monday's outpouring swelled as people poured from buildings and side streets wearing the trademark green of Mousavi's campaign.

Before the shooting, Mousavi had paused on the edge of Tehran's Azadi, or Freedom, Square to address the crowd, which was more than five miles long. They roared back: "Long live Mousavi."

"This is not election. This is selection," read one English-language sign at the demonstration. Other marchers held signs proclaiming "We want our vote!" and raising their fingers in a V-for-victory salute.

"We want our president, not the one who was forced on us," said 28-year-old Sara, who gave only her first name because of fears of reprisals from authorities.

Ayatollah's order
Hours earlier, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei directed one of Iran's most influential bodies, the Guardian Council, to examine the claims.

But the move by Khamenei — who had earlier welcomed the election results — had no guarantee it would satisfy those challenging Ahmadinejad's re-election or quell days of rioting after Friday's election that left parts of Tehran scarred by flames and shattered store fronts.

The outcome of the election has disconcerted Western powers trying to induce the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter to curb its nuclear program. U.S. President Barack Obama had urged Iran's leadership "to unclench its fist" for a new start in ties.

The 12-member Guardian Council, made up of clerics and experts in Islamic law and closely allied to Khamenei, must certify election results and has the apparent authority to nullify an election. But it would be an unprecedented step. Claims of voting irregularities went before the council after Ahmadinejad's upset victory in 2005, but there was no official word on the outcome of the investigation and the vote stood.

More likely, the dramatic intervention by Khatamei could be an attempt to buy time in hopes of reducing the anti-Ahmadinejad anger. The prospect of spiraling protests and clashes is the ultimate nightmare for the Islamic establishment, which could be forced into back-and-forth confrontations and risks having the dissidents move past the elected officials and directly target the ruling theocracy.

The massive display of opposition unity Monday suggested a possible shift in tactics by authorities after cracking down hard during days of rioting.

State TV quoted Khamenei as ordering the Guardian Council to "carefully probe" the allegations of fraud, which were contained in a letter Mousavi submitted Sunday.

On Saturday, however, Khamenei urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad and called the result a "divine assessment."

The results touched off three days of clashes — the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. Protesters set fires and battled riot police, including a clash overnight at Tehran University after about 3,000 students gathered to oppose the election results.

Security forces have struck back with targeted arrests of pro-reform activists and blocks on text messaging and pro-Mousavi Web sites used to rally his supporters.

Student allegedly killed
One of Mousavi's Web sites said a student protester was killed early Monday in clashes with plainclothes hard-liners in Shiraz, southern Iran. But there was no independent confirmation of the report. There also have been unconfirmed reports of unrest in other cities.

Most media are not allowed to travel beyond Terhan and thus can not independently confirm protests in other cities.

The unrest also risked bringing splits among Iran's clerical elite, including some influential Shiite scholars raising concern about possible election irregularities and at least one member of the ruling theocracy, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, openly critical of Ahmadinejad in the campaign.

According to a pro-Mousavi Web site, he sent a letter to senior clerics in Qom, Iran's main center of Islamic learning, to spell out his claims.

Overnight, police and hard-line militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students angry over what they say was mass election fraud.

The nighttime gathering of about 3,000 students at dormitories of Tehran University started with students chanting "Death to the dictator." But it quickly erupted into clashes as students threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police, who fought back with tear gas and plastic bullets, a 25-year-old student who witnessed the fighting told The Associated Press.

The students set a truck and other vehicles on fire and hurled stones and bricks at the police, he said. Hard-line militia volunteers loyal to the Revolutionary Guard stormed the dormitories, ransacking student rooms and smashing computers and furniture with axes and wooden sticks, Akbar said.

Before leaving around 4 a.m., the police took away memory cards and computer software material, Akbar said, adding that dozens of students were arrested.

He said many students suffered bruises, cuts and broken bones in the scuffling and that there was still smoldering garbage on the campus by midmorning but that the situation had calmed down.

"Many students are now leaving to go home to their families, they are scared," he said. "But others are staying. The police and militia say they will be back and arrest any students they see."

"I want to stay because they beat us and we won't retreat," he added.

Tehran University was the site of serious clashes against student-led protests in 1999 and is one of the nerve centers of the pro-reform movement.

After dark Sunday, Ahmadinejad opponents shouted their opposition from Tehran's rooftops. Cries of "Death to the dictator!" and "Allahu akbar!" — "God is great!" — echoed across the capital. The protest bore deep historic resonance — it was how the leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini asked Iran to unite against the Western-backed shah 30 years earlier.

Ahmadinejad delays Moscow trip
In Moscow, the Iranian Embassy said Ahmadinejad has put off a visit to Russia, and it is unclear whether he will come at all. Ahmadinejad had been expected to travel to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg and meet on Monday with President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of a regional summit.

In Washington, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that Obama's effort to engage Tehran after a nearly three-decade estrangement would continue, regardless of the election's result.

Obama, shifting course from his predecessor, has said he wants to talk to the theocratic regime in Tehran, with the central goal of stopping it from producing a nuclear weapon. He has set a year-end deadline for a positive response to his overture.

Biden told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the administration was still examining whether Friday's vote in Iran accurately reflected a response to Obama's desire for engagement.

"That's the question," Biden said. "Is this the result of the Iranian people's wishes? The hope is that the Iranian people, all their votes have been counted, they've been counted fairly. But look, we just don't know enough."