Crackdown After Iran Protests Widens   02/09 06:02

   Iranian security forces have launched a campaign to arrest figures within 
the country's reformist movement, reports said Monday.

   DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iranian security forces have launched a 
campaign to arrest figures within the country's reformist movement, reports 
said Monday.

   That widens a crackdown on dissent after authorities earlier put down 
nationwide protests in violence that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands 
more detained.

   Detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has received another 
prison sentence of over seven years. It signals a widening effort to silence 
anyone opposed to the bloody suppression of unrest by Iran's theocracy as it 
faces new nuclear talks with the United States. President Donald Trump has 
repeatedly warned he could launch an attack on the country if no deal is 
reached.

   Media reports quoted officials within the reformist movement, which seeks to 
change Iran's theocracy from inside, as saying at least four of their members 
had been arrested. They include Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformist Front, 
which represents multiple reformist factions; and former diplomat Mohsen 
Aminzadeh, who served under reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

   Also detained was Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, who led students who stormed the U.S. 
Embassy in Tehran in 1979, sparking the 444-day hostage crisis.

   Their arrests likely stem from a reformist statement in January that called 
for Iran's 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to resign from his 
position and have a transitional governing council oversee the country.

   Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted a statement from prosecutors in 
Tehran, the country's capital, saying four people had been arrested and others 
summoned to meet authorities. It accused those allegedly involved of 
"organizing and leading ... activities aimed at disrupting the political and 
social situation in the country amid military threats from the United States 
and the Zionist regime."

   "Having bludgeoned the streets into silence with exemplary cruelty, the 
regime has shifted its attention inward, fixing its stare on its loyal 
opposition," wrote Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group.

   "The reformists, sensing the ground move beneath them, had begun to drift -- 
and power, ever paranoid, is now determined to cauterize dissent before it 
learns to walk."

   However, it remains unclear just how much political support reformists have 
within Iran. The anger on the streets of Iran during the demonstrations, heard 
in people shouting "Death to Khamenei!" and in support of the country's exiled 
crown prince, appeared to lump reformists in with all other politicians now 
working in the Islamic Republic.

   Iran and the U.S. held new nuclear talks last week in Oman. Foreign Minister 
Abbas Araghchi, speaking Sunday to diplomats at a summit in Tehran, signaled 
that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium -- 
a major point of contention with Trump, who bombed Iranian atomic sites in June 
during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to travel to Washington this 
week, with Iran expected to be the major subject of discussion, his office said.

   The U.S. has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and 
warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the 
firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so.

   Meanwhile, Iran issued a warning to pilots that it planned "rocket launches" 
Monday into Tuesday in an area over the country's Semnan province, home to the 
Imam Khomeini Spaceport. Such launches have corresponded in the past with Iran 
marking the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.