Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Friday that the country neither believes in atomic bombs nor is it seeking to develop such weapons, reports Press TV.

The Leader said the continuation of allegations by the West that the country is pursuing military objectives in its civilian nuclear program signals that the propaganda campaign against Iran has failed.

Iran has announced many times, he said, that its fundamentals and religious principles consider weapons of mass destruction as “illegal and haraam” — meaning forbidden and prohibited according to Islamic rules.

The West accuses Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of seeking a nuclear weapon. Tehran, however, rejects the allegation and says its program is aimed at the civilian applications of the technology.

Iran in no way believes in an atomic bomb, and it does not seek one, Ayatollah Khamenei said.

Dubai will issue arrest warrants soon for 11 Europeans suspected in the killing of a senior Hamas official, and cannot rule out Israeli involvement, the police chief said on Monday.

“We do not rule out Mossad, but when we arrest those suspects we will know who masterminded it. [We have not] issued arrest warrants yet, but will do soon,” police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim told reporters.

He said police had arrested two Palestinians suspected of providing logistical support in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a Dubai hotel last month.

Dubai Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim told reporters that the alleged assassination team comprised six British passport holders, three Irish and one each from France and Germany.

The mercenaries were apparently dressed in tennis gear and visited several hotels on the day of the assasination in order to remain inconspicuous.

He says forensic tests indicate al-Mabhouh died of suffocation, but lab
analyses are still under way.

Top Hamas figures have denied that al-Mabhouh was en route to Iran, a major Hamas backer.

Last week the a Paris-based journal dedicated to tracking intelligence activity worldwide, Intelligence Online, reported that ten agents, including three women, participated in the assassination in January.

The journal published what it termed “new details” about the operation, which has been widely attributed to Israel’s Mossad intelligence service. It said that one of the female agents dressed herself in the uniform of a reception clerk at Al Bustan Rotana, the hotel where Mabhouh was staying, and then knocked on his door.

When he opened it her fellow operatives rushed him and stunned him with an electric device, the journal said, then they injected poison into his veins, in order to disguise the cause of death.

All 11 agents carried European passports, the journal said.

Previous reports spoke of seven agents, all carrying Irish passports.

Read the full story here.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview that the Iranian nation is currently demonstrating the highest level of unity in its history.

“Today, the highest level of unity and social solidarity exists in the country,” Ahmadinejad told Russia’s VIP-Premier magazine. “Considering Iran’s history, [such unity] is extraordinary.”

“The recent presidential election, which demonstrated the highest level of eligible voter participation of 85 percent, shows that the solidarity has grown over the past 30 years [since the victory of the Islamic Revolution],” he said.

He also touched on the country’s nuclear issue and said Iran does not need nuclear weapons.

President Ahmadinejad said nuclear weapons are of no use anymore and that Iran can defend itself without them.

Iran says its nuclear program is aimed at the civilian applications of the technology and has called for the removal of all weapons of mass destruction from across the globe.

Read more here.

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Iran on Tuesday began enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent at its Natanz enrichment facility under the surveillance of inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog.

The move comes after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tasked the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) with enriching uranium to 20 percent in order to meet the demands of the country’s cancer patients.

Iran has earlier informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it would start enriching uranium to 20 percent on Tuesday in the presence of the inspectors and observers from the agency.

Iran needs 120 kg (264 lb) of 20 percent-enriched uranium to fuel the Tehran research reactor, which produces medical isotopes for cancer patients and is soon to run out of fuel.

The Tehran research reactor, which produces 20 different kinds of radio-medicine for cancer patients, runs on 20 percent-enriched U-235.

The AEOI Director Ali-Akbar Salehi on Tuesday confirmed the beginning of uranium enrichment to 20 percent purity level at Natanz plant.

“The enrichment started on Tuesday in a separate cascade from the production line that enriches uranium in Natanz,” Salehi told the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Meanwhile, Haaretz reports that U.S. President Barack Obama has pushed toward new international sanctions against Iran.

Read more here.

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Dozens of Basiji militants, supporters of the Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have tried to assault the Italian embassy in Teheran shouting “Death to Italy, death to Silvio Berlusconi,” reports Corriere della Sera.

The militants, dressed as civilians tried to assault the embassy with stones and continued their aggressions against both the French and Dutch embassies.

The news was released by the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, during a Senate hearing. There were no reports about wounded staff, but the attack, he said, was ‘worrying’.  The cause of the Iran militants’ assault is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s criticisms of Ahmadinejad made during a visit to Israel. According to Iranian state television, Berlusconi and the Italian government were named as ’slaves of Israel.’

The Italian Foreign Minister Frattini then announced that he had given instructions to Italy’s ambassador in Tehran, Alberto Bradanini, to have no part in the ceremonies taking place on Thursday at the 31^st anniversary of the Iranian republic.

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Iran’s enemies will not be able to block the country’s scientific progress.

In an address to the Second National Festival of Innovation and Prosperity in Tehran on Monday, Ahmadinejad said that young Iranian students would continue to attain great achievements in various technological fields.

The Iranian president also said the enemy assassinated Iranian particle physicist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi but added that such attacks would only strengthen the country’s resolve to strive to attain even greater scientific achievements.

Read more here.

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Director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi says the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be operational within the next few months.

In an interview with Fars News Agency on Wednesday, Salehi said that the Bushehr nuclear plant would come online by late September.

He added that experts are conducting important and final tests and that there will be no delays on the part of the Russians in launching the plant.

“So far most of the tests at the Bushehr power plant have been successful. Currently the tests on the metal sphere are being conducted, which will not take more than a week or two,” Salehi stated.

The Iranian nuclear official added that analytical testing procedures for the plants cooling system will be carried out in the coming months before nuclear fuel is introduced into the 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant’s cycle.

Iran expects to generate 17.5 percent — 20,000 megawatts — of the country’s electricity demand through nuclear energy over the next two decades.

Read more here.

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Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Wednesday rejected the speculations that the US and Israel might launch an attack against the country, stressing that the Zionist regime does not dare to attack Iran.

We believe that the Zionist regime is not experiencing proper conditions to dare to attack Iran, Mottaki told reporters in a joint press conference with his Omani counterpart Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdallah here in Tehran today.

The Iranian top diplomat also described the possibility of a military attack against Iran’s nuclear installations as media propaganda by the Zionists and Americans which was heated during the presidency of George W. Bush.

“Since its illegal establishment in the region, Israel has brought the Muslim people of the region nothing but problem, annoyance, aggression, terror and massacre,” he added.

“Israel is a useless member which has been imposed on the region,” Mottaki said, reminding that due to the aggressive nature of the Israeli regime, it should always be watched and monitored.

Speculations that Israel could bomb Iran mounted after a big Israeli air drill in 2008.

Read more here.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it has found traces of US and Israel’s involvement in the assassination of an Iranian nuclear physics scientist.

“Primary investigations into the assassination revealed signs of the involvement of the Zionist regime [Israel], the US and their allies in Iran,” spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said.

Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran University, was killed by a booby-trapped motorbike blast in the Iranian capital earlier in the day.

The explosion took place near the professor’s home in the Qeytariyeh neighborhood of northern Tehran.

Mehman-Parast strongly condemned the assassination, saying the participation of Israeli and American agents “runs counter to international regulations.”

He, however, said such moves would not affect Iran’s pursuit of civilian nuclear technology.

“Such terrorist moves and apparent omission of Iranian nuclear scientists will definitely cause no obstacle in the way of the country’s scientific and technological development. Rather they will speed up it.”

An analyst said the terror is most likely sponsored by the West.

Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University, told Press TV that Ali-Mohammadi’s colleagues at the capital’s most prestigious university believe the attack was orchestrated by the West.

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The Cuban Interests Section in Washington said that the Cuban government is cooperating in the international fight against terrorism and rejected the fact that the United States includes the country on its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

Cuba, spokesman Alberto Gonzalez told Efe, “has complied, is complying and will comply with the internationally recognized security measures for these cases.”

Gonzalez insisted that Cuba, in any case, “does not recognize any moral authority of the U.S. government to certify its inclusion and that of the Cubans on this type of list.”

After the failed Christmas Day attack on a flight over Detroit, the United States increased security checks on international passengers, in particular those arriving from Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, whose governments Washington accuses of sponsoring terrorism.

It is also subjecting to greater scrutiny in airports those passengers from “countries of interest,” including Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.

Spokesman Gonzalez said that Cuba “has a perfectly clean service record in this area. Cuban territory has never been used to organize, finance or execute terrorist acts against the United States of America or any other state.”

Along those lines, he said that the inclusion of Cuba on the black list has a political character because the government in Washington “cannot cite a single terrorist act or intention that has come from Cuban territory.”

On the contrary, he continued, Cuba has been “the victim of violence and terrorism” by people such as Luis Posada Carriles, who is accused by Havana of the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.

Posada is currently living in the United States and Washington has ignored a Venezuelan request for his extradition in the airliner bombing, though he does face lesser charges in the United States for perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to immigration authorities about his past activities.

Read more here.