TEHRAN — Several associates of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s closest adviser have been arrested in the past few days, Iranian Web sites reported Friday.

Among them is the cleric who leads the prayers at the presidential mosque, Abbas Amirifar, as well as a person accused of sorcery, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

The arrests follow increasing pressure by clerics, politicians and commanders on Ahmadinejad to cut ties with Esfandiar Rahim Mashaee, the closest adviser of the president, but a man hated by Iran’s clerics for advocating the importance of Iranian culture over Islamic tenets.

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Iran to examine Bahraini government crackdown on protesters Channel 6 News Online TEHRAN (BNO NEWS) -- Iran said on Friday it will look into the "crimes" committed during the government crackdown on protesters in Bahrain, Press TV reported. Senior Iranian lawmaker, Mostafa Kavakebian, said Iranian officials will "thoroughly review ... BUSINESS BOYCOTT URGEDGulf Daily News all 18 news articles »

Siamak Pourzand, a veteran journalist and former prisoner of conscience, has committed suicide in Tehran at the age of 80.

Trend News Agency

Tehran Keen to Strengthen Cultural Ties with Baghdad Fars News Agency Speaking at a meeting with a group of visiting Iraqi professors and intellectuals here in Tehran, Hosseini renewed Iran's determination to increase ties with neighboring country in cultural fields. "Iran is the land of culture, science, ... Iran to boost cultural ties with Iraq: Culture ministerTrend News Agency all 5 news articles »

Between Ahmadinejad and the clerics.

Two weeks after Iran's 2009 presidential election, Nazila Fathi, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, realized she was under government surveillance and immediately left her home in Tehran with her husband and two children.

The Guardian

Regional countries should foil enemy plots:Ahmadinejad Trend News Agency Referring to the fact that Iran and Pakistan have inseparable historical, geographical and cultural bonds, he pointed out that the all-out cooperation between Tehran and Islamabad is not only beneficial to both nations it is a historical exigency and ... Ahmadinejad supporters arrestedNews.Az all 19 news articles »

Fox News

Dissent Lives in Iranian CyberSpace, Despite Regime's Attempt to Crackdown Fox News Despite the Tehran regime's best efforts to silence its youth -- both literally and virtually -- Persian-language cyberspace is alive with dissent, and intensely focused on what is going on not just in Iran, but throughout the Arab world ...

A growing array of forces takes aim at the Iranian president and his controversial chief of staff. [Commentary]

The Guardian

Ahmadinejad in the Crosshairs PBS The widow of a former foreign minister under Mohammad Mosaddegh, the head of the Iran National Museum, and a man referred to as "Ghafari" are among those who have apparently been detained. Tehran Prosecutor-General Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said Ghafari ... Politics in Iran: Trouble at the topThe Economist all 9 news articles »

TEHRAN, May 5 (UPI) -- The Iranian president has called on the country's supreme leader to prevent the creation of a sports ministry, something his critics say is illegal.

I see where Vice Adm. Robert Harward has been nominated to succeed John Allen as the deputy commander at Central Command.

Three things strike me about this:

--First, what a week for the SEALs -- Adm. William McRaven oversees the SEAL raid that gets bin Laden, and now McRaven's doppelganger becomes the first Special Operator (at least that I can remember) to get one of the two top posts at Centcom. Also, we have the christening of a Navy ship named for SEAL Michael Murphy.

--Second, it is interesting that Centcom has been led by a series of Navy Department officers -- Adm. Fallon before Petraeus, Marine Gen. Mattis after him, and now a Naval officer replacing a Marine officer as deputy.

--Third, with this following the move of Petraeus to CIA, I wonder if we are seeing personnel moves as part of preparation to turn AfPak over to Special Operators and CIA -- that is, moving away from conventional forces to a smaller but serious counterterror approach.

Bonus fact: As a teenager, Harward lived in Tehran and, like me at the time, knocked around Afghanistan. (He got deadly sick in Kandahar, and I did in Peshawar. The main thing I miss about being young is that resliency.) I expect he will be Centcom's lead Iran-watcher.  

Months after her release from an Iranian prison, U.S. citizen Sarah Shourd has announced she will not return to Tehran next week to face espionage charges. Shourd was jailed for 14 months after she and friends, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, were detained by Iranian forces on July 31, 2009, for allegedly hiking across the Iraqi border into Iran. The trial for Bauer -- who is now Shourd's fiancé -- and Fattal begins May 11. Shourd had planned to return to Iran, but has cancelled her trip because she is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

TEHRAN: In his best-known works the iconic Iranian artist Fereydoun Ave has constantly investigated historical turning points, ancient motifs and the social aspects of his ancestral mythology - aspects that move through historical and contemporary narratives.

Yesterday I noted, half-jokingly, that Iran supports and encourages all popular revolutions - except in Iran and Syria because those protesters are Zionist stooges.

Once again, one cannot satirize people who are already off the deep end.

From Now Lebanon:

Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghandafar Roken Abadi said Thursday that Tehran “understand the basis of all the legitimate demands of all people of any region in the world, whether in Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya or Bahrain,” but added that “everyone knows the situation is different in Syria.”

“What is currently occurring in Syria is a political vendetta conducted by the US and Israel, and this is [a] clear and explicit [project] to separate Syria from the Resistance plan,” the National News Agency quoted him as saying.

In other news, Israel's Channel 10 uncovered a secret document showing that Syria's president is bringing in Hezbollah to quash the protests.

(h/t Joel)

Iranian Energy Minister Majid Namjou says Tehran and Ankara have finalized an energy roadmap aimed at promoting investment and cooperation between the two neighbors, reported Press TV, Day.Az said.

Iran's Deputy Culture Minister for Cinematic Affairs Javad Shamaqdari said Tehran will host the first Senior Officials Meeting on Cultural Cooperation of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue , the English language satellite Press TV reported Thursday.

Fox News

Chilean experts to assist Mexican mine rescue team CNN International By the CNN Wire Staff Mexico City (CNN) -- Experts from Chile who helped rescue miners there in October are expected to arrive in northern Mexico Thursday, where nine workers remained trapped in a mine after an explosion, Mexico's foreign ministry said ... Hope fading for minersThe Province Hopes fade for 9 trapped miners in northern MexicoThe Associated Press No Hope of Survivors in Mine Accident, Mexican Government SaysLatin American Herald Tribune Latin America News Dispatch -Tehran Times all 956 news articles »

Cooperation between Tehran and Cairo would definitely continue till reopening of both countries' embassies at each others' capital cities, IRI Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said, Press TV reported.

Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers charged with spying in Iran, says she will not return to Tehran for trial next week.

Tehran will be hosting the 1st Senior Officials Meeting on Cultural Cooperation of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue on May 9 and 10.

Iran and Turkey finalized an energy roadmap aimed at boosting investment and cooperation between the two countries, the Iranian energy minister said here on Tuesday.

From Tehran Times:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has stated that the European nations will certainly rise up against their governments, which are blindly following the policies of the United States and the Zionist regime.

The Leader made the remarks during a meeting with thousands of teachers on Wednesday on the occasion of the National Teachers’ Day....

“People’s awakening in the Middle East and North Africa is the continuation of the Iranian nation’s great movement, and this awakening will certainly spread to the heart of Europe,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

He went on to say, “The European nations will certainly rise up against their politicians and leaders who made them submit to the cultural and economic policies of the U.S. and the Zionists.”

On the important role the teachers can play to push ahead the Islamic awakening, the Leader said the teachers should raise public awareness and strengthen unity and solidarity through developing talents and training strong-willed, faithful, insightful, committed, and knowledgeable students.

He also said that the most important obligation of the education system is training the people who are capable of safeguarding the principles of the Islamic system and promoting the Iranian nation’s great movement.

But when people rise up against Iran or Syria, they are just proving they are Zionist stooges.

Journalist Siamak Pourzand (pictured, via) has reportedly committed suicide after enduring years of house arrest in Tehran. He was 80-years-old.

Pourzand built his career over the past fifty years, criticizing the Iranian government regime in his work. He managed a cultural center for writers, artists, and intellectuals called “Majmue-ye Farrhangi-ye Honari-ye Tehran.” The PEN American Center inducted him as an honorary member.

PEN American Center president Kwame Anthony Appiah had this statement: “At a time when men and women are finding their voices and crying out for dignity and basic rights throughout the region, Pourzand’s despair offers a disturbing measure of how arrested and isolated the Iranian regime now seems.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Healthy Diet and Lifestyle Tehran Times A healthy diet - the phrase sounds so ""good for you"", but does it sometimes make you think of boring tasteless food you probably wouldn't want to eat? It did for me. The truth is that eating healthy doesn't have to be boring or flavorless at all and ... and more »

Almonds-the-wonder-nut Tehran Times Fiber is beneficial for the digestive system and heart health. Protein is an important building block of bones, muscles, hair, nails and skin and helps repair tissues in the body. The mono-nun saturated fats found in almonds are the natural ""good ...

Trend News Agency

Tehran, Ankara sketch energy cooperation roadmap Tehran Times ANKARA -- Iran and Turkey finalized an energy roadmap aimed at boosting investment and cooperation between the two countries, the Iranian energy minister said here on Tuesday. Speaking at a joint press conference with Turkish Energy Minister Taner ... Iran, Turkey expand relations in energy affairsZawya 'Iran, Turkey finalize energy roadmap'Press TV Turkey, Iran move to boost energy investmentsSoutheast European Times Fars News Agency -Utilities-ME.com -Trend News Agency all 14 news articles »

Iranian police clash with football fans chanting anti-Saudi slogans during an Asia Champions League match in Tehran.

EDs should be aware of sexually transmitted infection risk in patients Tehran Times The most common was chlamydia (20 percent), followed by trichomoniasis (10 percent) and gonorrhea (3.5 percent). In addition, 19 percent of patients infected with chlamydia also had trichomoniasis, while 6.7 percent had both chlamydia and gonorrhea. ...

Things would have been different if, back in April 1980, the helicopter hadn’t crashed; eight went into a desert sandstorm to rescue 52 Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. One crashed and another had to turn back. Desert One was a dismal failure on the heels of Vietnam, telling the world that we, the Americans, could not do things well anymore. The helicopter wrecked in the desert became the symbol of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, but it would have been different if the rescue attempt were successful. Carter would have been a great hero and America would have been renewed because all that matters in war is whether the spear hits the lion. Had he been successful there would have been no “morning in America” just ahead — no need for it, no Reykjavik Summit, and probably no Ronald Reagan. So there was a moment of anxiety when the one helicopter went down on Sunday on the way to the compound at Abbottabad. But this time it was different. This time the spear hit the lion.

Conflicting accounts of the raid by US Navy Seals on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, are continuing to emerge

1.24pm: In the absence of pictures of the operation that led to the killing of Bin Laden, the photograph of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supposedly watching events unfold has become one of the iconic images of the episode.

But the CIA director Leon Panetta has made clear that they did not see the shooting of Bin Laden or much else.

He told PBS Newshour:

Once those teams went into the compound, I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we - you know, we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information. But finally, Adm. McRaven came back and said that he had picked up the word "Geronimo," which was the code word that represented that they got bin Laden.

_

12.54pm: A doctor who sold the piece of land where Bin Laden's final hideout was built identified the buyer as Mohammad Arshad, a name that matched one of two Pakistani men often seen coming out of the al-Qaida chief's compound, AP reports.

Property records obtained by The Associated Press show Arshad bought adjoining plots in four stages between 2004 and 2005 in Abbottabad, the town where bin Laden hid for up to six years just a short drive from the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Dr Qazi Mahfooz Ul Haq said Wednesday he sold a plot of land to Arshad in 2005. He said the buyer was a "modest, humble type of man" who claimed to be purchasing it for his uncle.

There have been suggestions that "Arshad Khan" was the name of the "courier" sought by Americans, whose trail led them to Bin Laden.

12.46pm: Intriguing details of Bin Laden's possessions and his readiness to flee when he was killed have been revealed by Politico. Jonathan Allen writes:

Osama bin Laden had cash totalling 500 Euros and two telephone numbers sewn into his clothing when he was killed — sure signs that he was prepared to flee his compound at a moment's notice — top US intelligence officials told members of Congress at a classified briefing in the Capitol Tuesday.

The evidence of cash — which amounts to about $740 in U.S. dollars — and phone numbers was divulged to support the administration's belief that bin Laden was prepared to escape the compound if alerted to an impending attack, the source said.

Interesting stuff, although it would be surprising if the world's most wanted man didn't have an escape plan that could be put into operation with little notice.

12.13pm: Remember Gary Faulkner? He was the sword-wielding American arrested in northern Pakistan while hunting Bin Laden.

He has given an interview to ABC saying he flushed Bin Laden out and arguing that he should be entitled to part of the $25 million reward for his capture. Faulkner said:

I had a major hand and play in this wonderful thing, getting him out of the mountains and down to the valleys... Someone had to get him out of there. That's where I came in. I scared the squirrel out of his hole, he popped his head up and he got capped.

He also dismissed the idea that Bin Laden had been living at the Abbottabad compound for six years:

"He hadn't been living there for no damn six years. I absolutely flushed him out."

ABC notes Faulkner "has not been mentioned in the government's detailed account of how the CIA painstakingly tracked down Bin Laden".

11.50am: The Guardian has video of funeral prayers for Bin Laden and anti-American protests in Pakistan

_

11.42am: Much praise has been heaped on the US navy's Seal Team 6, which stormed Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, with a number of glowing tributes penned to the elite unit, formed in the aftermath of the botched US response to the Tehran hostage crisis.

But as differing accounts of the operation emerge, my colleague Sam Jones writes that its reputation is not without blemish:

In October last year sailors from the unit were dispatched to rescue the British aid worker Linda Norgrove, who had been kidnapped by militants in Afghanistan.

Norgrove died during the raid after one of the Seals threw a fragmentation grenade close to where she was sheltering.

Initial reports suggested she had been killed by an insurgent's suicide bomb vest. But when the Seal commanding officer reviewed surveillance video recordings he saw an explosion after one of the Seals threw something in Norgrove's direction. A number of the Seals were disciplined as a result.

The last time the public was made aware of a Seal raid on Pakistani soil was three years ago, when the raiders flew a mile over the border to the town of Angurada. Their high-value targets had fled and those left behind in the compound fought back, resulting in a number of civilian casualties, according to US and Pakistani officials.

Seal Team 6 were also part of the joint operation to rescue Jessica Lynch, the US soldier who became an icon for the Iraq war. The rescue was portrayed as a daring assault to rescue a comrade who had been mistreated in the hospital. But Iraqi doctors later contradicted this account, insisting she was treated well and there was no need to storm the hospital as no Iraqi soldiers were present.

11.03am: The implications of Bin Laden's death for Indonesia, the world's biggest Islamic country, are examined by International Crisis Group's Sidney Jones, in the Jakarta Post.

She identifies three possible consequences. The first is a temporary shift back to foreign targets. Jones says for the last two years Indonesian extremists have moved away from attacks on symbols of the West but "Bin Laden was such a powerful symbol and so revered in the extremist community, however, that calculations of costs and benefits may be overridden by a felt need to respond somehow to his death. The ubiquitous television images of cheering Americans may strengthen that resolve".

The second is the possibility of revenge attacks, although Jones says planning an attack takes time and Indonesian extremists "do not have a successful track record in this regard".

The third possible consequence is a strengthened attachment to al-Qaida.

Jones writes:

On 25 January this year, Umar Patek was arrested in Abbottabad, the same town where Bin Laden was living. It was probably not a coincidence (indeed, may have been part of the same operation).

Indonesian authorities need to be asking Patek, who remains in detention in Pakistan, exactly what the nature of his communication was with the al-Qaida organization and who else from Southeast Asia is actively working with al-Qaida in propaganda, training, or even operations.

In his desire to work with Bin Laden, Patek, a former Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) member who was one of the original Bali bombers, follows in the footsteps of Hambali, the JI leader detained in Guantanamo whose relationship with al-Qaida until his arrest in 2003 is outlined in a recent WikiLeaks document ...

The death of Bin Laden could lead to a renewed push to bolster these ties or to an intensified propaganda campaign based on al-Qaida materials, especially from AQAP [al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula], translated into Indonesian.

10.38am: "Did brutal interrogations produce the crucial intelligence that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden?" That is the question being asked by the New York Times and others as Bush administration officials, in the aftermath of the death of the al-Qaida leader, claim vindication for methods such as waterboarding. More specifically people are asking whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the US, provided crucial information while being tortured.

The Times writes:

A closer look at prisoner interrogations suggests that the harsh techniques played a small role at most in identifying Bin Laden's trusted courier and exposing his hide-out. One detainee who apparently was subjected to some tough treatment provided a crucial description of the courier, according to current and former officials briefed on the interrogations. But two prisoners who underwent some of the harshest treatment — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times — repeatedly misled their interrogators about the courier's identity ...

In 2002 and 2003, interrogators first heard about a Qaeda courier who used the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, but his name was just one tidbit in heaps of uncorroborated claims ...

According to an American official familiar with his interrogation, Mr. Mohammed was first asked about Mr. Kuwaiti in the fall of 2003, months after the waterboarding. He acknowledged having known him but said the courier was "retired" and of little significance.

It also quotes Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, as saying:

The bottom line is this: If we had some kind of smoking-gun intelligence from waterboarding in 2003, we would have taken out Osama bin Laden in 2003.

But the Times writes that an al-QaIda operative named Hassan Ghul, captured in Iraq, said Kuwaiti was a trusted courier who was close to Bin Laden, as well as to Mohammed. It says "the details of Mr. Ghul's treatment are unclear, though the C.I.A. says he was not waterboarded".

10.12am: Good morning. Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Doubts are continuing to be cast on the accounts of the raid on the house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that were initially given by US officials.

After White House admissions that early official reports claiming Bin Laden had been armed and cowered behind his wife during the assault were false, al-Arabiya is now reporting that the al-Qaida leader's 12-year-old daughter, told Pakistani officials US forces captured her father alive before shooting him dead:

The [Pakistani] official said a 12-year-old daughter of bin Laden was among the six children rescued from the three-storey compound.

The daughter has reportedly told her Pakistani investigators that the US forces captured her father alive but shot him dead in front of family members.

According to sources, Bin Laden was staying on the ground floor of the house and was dragged on the floor to the helicopter after being shot dead by US commandos.

There were conflicting reports about the second person the US forces took along with them. Some Pakistani officials say it was one of Bin Laden's sons injured by the US commandos and thrown onto a separate military chopper; others say he was killed in the operation and it was only his dead body that they took along.

While any account given by Bin Laden's family is likely to be treated with scepticism (especially coming via Pakistani security officials), the changing account given by the White House may lend this version of events more credence than it would otherwise have been granted.

Reuters

Iran supports Palestinian unity efforts: lawmaker People's Daily Online Head of Iran's Majlis (Parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Tuesday that Tehran supports reconciliation between Palestinian political parties Hamas and Fatah, the English language satellite Press TV ... Iran supports Palestinian unity effortsPress TV Obama Emboldened, But Old Middle East Obstacles RemainThe Jewish Week Egypt shakes up Middle Eastern orderAsia Times Online Financial Times -Moment Magazine -The Israel Project (press release) all 1,805 news articles »

Iran Book News Agency

Iran hosts International Book Fair News.Az "Iran is the standard-bearer of thought in the world and is inviting the world to strive to reach the acme of humanity," President Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday at the opening ceremony of the 24th Tehran International Book Fair. ... 24th Tehran Int'l Book Fair inauguratesIran Book News Agency all 6 news articles »

TG Daily

Where is Internet Explorer 9? Have you seen it? Tehran Times By comparison, Firefox 4.0, which launched 7 days later, snatched 5.43 percent usage share. Both browsers debuted in March. The kicker: Windows 7. Microsoft only released IE9 for that operating system and Windows Vista. By comparison, Firefox 4 runs on ... Web browser market share: upgrade analysisArs Technica Internet Explorer and Firefox keep slipping despite updatesThe Tech Herald Internet Explorer and Firefox Continue to SlidePCWorld TechSpot -ComputerworldUK (blog) -CNET all 80 news articles »

Iranian writer-director Massy Tadjedin arrives in films via Tehran and Harvard with Last Night, a tedious but cogent feature debut that explores the boundaries of conventional morality in a seemingly perfect modern marriage that is beginning to show cracks. After four years of togetherness, an attractive, successful and outwardly flawless New York couple (with inexplicable British accents) hits a pothole it takes a day and a night to pave. During the 24 hours it...

As Syria steps up its bloody crackdown against anti-regime protesters, governments in the region are watching to see if President Bashar al-Assad will quash the uprising or if the country will descend further into chaos and civil strife.

Syria's neighbors don't agree on much, but there is a broad consensus that Assad's ouster would unleash a wave of sectarian violence and extremism that could be catastrophic to regional stability.

As the Washington Post notes, regime change in Syria would look a lot more like Iraq in 2003 than Egypt 2011. In Syria, where the Alawite Shiite sect rules both the government and the military, the end of the Assad regime would set the stage for the state to collapse and the majority Sunni population to take revenge on the country's Shiite and Christian sects. Given Syria's geographical position, a civil war would almost inevitably become a proxy battle fought by regional powers (Saudi Arabia/Iran).

The prospect makes all of Syria's neighbors nervous. Here's a look at some of their concerns:

Iraq: Iraq's Shiite-led government fears that the collapse of Syria's Shiite rulers would give rise to a new Sunni state along its long western border. The border was, until recently, the chief transit point for Islamic extremists joining the Sunni insurgency. Iraq and the U.S. both fear that a destabilized Syria would renew traffic across the border.

Israel: Although Syria and Israel are longtime enemies, the two countries have maintained a stable border for nearly 40 years. A new, popular government in Syria - particularly one led by or sympathetic to Islamists  - could break the ceasefire and cause a war over the Golan Heights.

Iran: Iran fears losing its only Arab ally if the Assad regime should topple. Although Tehran has begun to reopen ties with Egypt, no other Arab country can give Iran the direct access to Hezbollah and Lebanon that Syria provides.

Lebanon: Instability in Syria is virtually guaranteed to exacerbate sectarian divides in Lebanon. Assad's government has had its hand in Lebanese politics for many years, providing military support for the Hezbollah resistance movement against Lebanon's Sunni and Christian populations, as well as Israel. Regime change in Syria would cut off a critical supply line for Hezbollah and weaken the organization's deterrence capabilities with Israel.

Turkey: Syria's northern neighbor is concerned about the political aspirations of Syria's ethnic Kurdish population, which is concentrated near the Turkish and Iraqi borders. Political instability in Syria - combined with the weak Iraqi state - could lead to renewed calls for a Kurdish state.

Assad's increasingly violent crackdown puts his neighbors in a tough spot. The international community has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in Syria, but as the death toll rises pressure grows for regional leaders to break their silence. Arab League officials fear the situation may already be out of their control.

“Everyone is concerned about Syria but everyone is also worried about the day after,” a former Arab League official told the Financial Times. “Still, things are moving at a pace that is faster than anyone imagined and governments are making decisions hour by hour, not even day by day.”

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"Runaway American Dream" (see image above) was the title of one of Sara Rahbar's pieces on Art Brussels (stand Hilger Contemporary) .

The Tehran-born artist fled Iran in the turbulent period following the Islamic revolution & preceding the Iran-Iraq war. After her escape Rahbar studied in London and New York and now spends most of her productive life between Tehran and New York. In this going back and forth, an apocalyptic memory has been revised in her reworking of traditional materials into proto-contemporary textiles and textures of national belonging. The most frequent theme in her work is the Flag, seen as a symbol of ideological and nationalistic violence.

The pieces presented on Art Brussels belonged to her "War Series", consisting out of various used military equipment (empty backpacks, stretchers, coats, belts etc), beautifully embroidered with somewhat sarcastic messages and lyrical ornaments.
Sara Rahbar's upcoming solo show at Hilger Contemporary, aptly titled "I have no faith left for the devil to take" starts in Vienna on the 19th of May.

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US Navy SEALs, legendarily tough, secretive specialists, led the bold commando operation in Pakistan that took down the world's most wanted man: 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, US officials said. After an embarrassing failure at rescuing hostages from the US embassy in Tehran in 1980, US authorities sought to bring hard-learned lessons into play seven