Word: ayatullah
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...competing moderate and hard-line factions in Iran. The first suggestion that this chapter was closing came last week in New York City, when Iran's moderate President Mohammed Khatami told reporters that the Rushdie affair was "completely finished." On Thursday, Iranian TV, which is controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, reported on the news from New York City factually and without editorial comment, signaling its acquiescence to the decision. The next day, national prayers, which are broadcast countrywide, were led by Ayatullah Mohammed Yazdi, the judiciary head who is close to Khamenei. He referred to Khatami's visit...
...saber rattling began with an exchange of insults. The Taliban fighters were "uneducated idiots," sneered Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, the hard-line mullah who also serves as commander in chief of the armed forces. Soon after, the Taliban's leader, a charismatic, one-eyed village clergyman named Mullah Mohammed Omar, retorted that the Shi'ites were ranked somewhere "between infidels and true Muslims." Khamenei had already sent thousands of Revolutionary 4Guards to stage showy war games along the border. Now, he warned, "I have so far prevented the lighting of a fire in this region which would...
...Iran saber rattling now, just when President Mohammed Khatami is cultivating nervous Arab neighbors and the West with a more moderate foreign policy? And just when Washington has signaled its readiness to improve relations? Political warfare at home may be the explanation. The country's supreme leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, controls the missile program, and he has been maneuvering to weaken Khatami ever since voters elected him a year ago on a promise to relax the government's strict Islamic rule...
...country on a new course toward greater freedom, respect for the rule of law and "a dialogue of civilizations." He wants an Iran where the people, not just the Shi'ite Muslim mullahs, have their say. Small wonder that friends and foes alike refer to him as Ayatullah Gorbachev...
...line mullahs, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, are determined to blunt the new President's reformist efforts. Conservative-controlled state radio immediately dismissed Albright's olive branch as nothing new, demanding that the U.S. apologize for a half-century of wrongs toward Iran. In a domestic power struggle that has intensified in the past month, the hard-liners have put the moderate mayor of Tehran on trial on corruption charges, ousted a key Khatami Cabinet minister and ordered the closure of a new liberal newspaper licensed under the President's pledge of greater press freedom. "What...