-Caveat Lector- Khamenei Says CIA Aware of Riot Plot DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday the CIA had long been aware of a plot to incite riots in the country. He also accused the foreign media of spreading rumors to encourage Iranians to rebel against the government, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said in a report monitored in Dubai. ``Such satanic propaganda was meant to free such snakes as the fugitives and counterrevolutionaries from their nests to incite the masses into insurgency,'' he said. Iran is recovering from weeklong street violence and pro-democracy demonstrations held earlier this month, the worst unrest in the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah and installed the rule of Shiite Muslim clerics. The protests were seen as evidence of growing frustration among ordinary Iranians with the strict Islamic rule of the clerics, who also have stifled the hugely popular President Mohamad Khatami's political and social reforms. Khamenei said the CIA's top official ``had predicted last year that 1999 will be a year of some unexpected events in Iran, unprecedented in the last 20 years of the Islamic revolution.'' ``This, in fact, shows that the U.S. agency was fully aware of the behind-the-scene moves inciting the insurgencies,'' Khamenei said during a Friday prayers sermon at Tehran University. Without addressing Khamenei's allegations about plots to incite riots, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield referred a reporter to a statement by CIA Director George Tenet to Congress last February. In it, Tenet said Iran ``is more likely to face serious unrest in 1999 than at any time since the revolution 20 years ago.'' ``The situation is very fluid and the more moderate elements represented by Iran's President Khatami are on the defensive to a greater degree than ever before in their struggle with the country's conservatives,'' Tenet said. On July 9, police stormed a Tehran University dormitory, leaving one man dead and 20 people injured. The action provoked the weeklong protests in Tehran and eight other cities, including clashes between police and pro-democracy demonstrators that left at least two other people dead and more than 200 injured. Khamenei said Iran's enemies aimed to use the storming of the dormitory to encourage insurgency. However, he acknowledged that the raid on the dormitory was ``a bitter incident.'' ``I have not come to a clear and definite conclusion for the logic behind the attack on the students' hostel at Tehran University. All its dimensions are not clear to me,'' he was quoted as saying. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
