A former CSIS informant who once kept tabs on terrorists says the Iranian regime is "mentally and spiritually" preparing its people for war against Israel.
The Ottawa man, now in Tehran, says the hate campaign against Israel is "everywhere" on the streets of the capital.
"It is not good. It is sad," he told the Citizen. "There are posters at intersections of (Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah) saying Israel must be erased from the map."
Opponents of the Iranian government in Canada say they have received similar reports describing huge posters of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Hezbollah leader alongside the slogan: "This war is our war."
"I had some reports where people said that they do not care what the government of Iran wants to do," said Shahram Golestaneh, president of Committee for Defence of Human Rights in Iran. "They are concerned about the possibility of more bloodshed in the Middle East and (concerned) that the government uses all Iran's money to help fight against Israel by its own Hezbollah."
Iran, which backs Hezbollah, has repeatedly denied Israeli claims that it also arms the organization established in the 1980s to combat Israeli forces.
"Our support has been spiritual. If we had military support, we would announce it. ... We don't have any hidden business," ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on state-run television yesterday, a day after U.S. President George W. Bush sharply criticized Iran's role in the bloody fighting.
"They don't have any right to tell us why Iran supports Hezbollah at all. The question is, why do they support Israel?" Mr. Asefi said.
Responding to statements from top Israeli officials that the fighting could continue for several weeks, Mr. Bush said Thursday that Iran is connected to Hezbollah, and now was the "time for the world to confront this danger."
John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, also has alleged that Iranians are Hezbollah's "paymasters, and they're calling the tune."
He estimated that Iran contributes $100 million annually to the Shia Islamic militants, who have supplanted Lebanon's central government as the effective political and military force in the southern region bordering Israel.
Yesterday, the 17th day of the conflict which began after Hezbollah crossed the border and captured two Israeli soldiers, Hezbollah launched a new kind of rocket that made its deepest strike into Israel yet.
"With this, the Islamic Resistance begins a new stage of fighting, challenge and confrontation with a strong determination and full belief in God's victory," Hezbollah said in a statement.
The militants said they used the new Khaibar-1 to strike the Israeli town of Afula, but Israel said the Khaibar-1 rockets were renamed, Iranian-made Fajr-5s. They have four times the power and range of Katyusha rockets, making them able to hit Tel Aviv's northern outskirts.
Iran is also believed to have supplied Hezbollah with up to 120 of the Fajr-5 and the somewhat shorter-range Fajr-3.
Earlier this week, about 60 Iranian volunteers left the country with the hopes of joining Hezbollah in the war against Israel. They called it a holy war, were unarmed and hoped to gain entry to Lebanon from Syria.
According to Mr. Golestaneh, some Iranian dissidents were pleased to see the militants, ranging in age from teens to grandfathers, leave the country.
"In one instance," according to the human rights worker "one person said 'In fact I rather they send all their loyalists to the war so we can breathe more easily.' ''
The human rights group also had reports from one source on the ground who said: "Every time there is an outside war, the level of repression inside also increases dramatically to kill any type of dissent."
In the past few days, according to the Canadian-based human rights group, the Iranian government has condemned 10 people to death.
Earlier this week, the Iranian president, who publicly denied the Holocaust last year, said Israel ordained its own destruction.
Mr. Ahmadinejad told clerical staff in Tehran that Israel and its supporters "should know that they cannot end the business that they have begun."
"The occupying regime of Palestine has actually pushed the button of its own destruction by launching a new round of invasion and barbaric onslaught on Lebanon," the president said, Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, responded by asking the world to listen to the Iranian president's words.
"President Ahmadinejad is a very dangerous and very destabilizing force in this world. He is a person who denies the Holocaust while very diligently preparing the next one," Mr. Gillerman told reporters in New York. |
Israel's UN envoy 
An Israeli bomb destroyed a UN observer post on the border in southern Lebanon, killing two peacekeepers with two others feared dead under the rubble. UN chief Kofi Annan said Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately.