Eye on Iran: Canada Train Plot Suspect Traveled to Iran: U.S. Officials

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories Reuters: "Investigators believe one of two suspects charged in Canada with plotting to blow up a railroad track carrying passenger trains traveled to Iran within the past two years, U.S. law enforcement and national security officials said on Thursday. Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian-born doctoral student, traveled to Iran on a trip that was directly relevant to the investigation of the alleged plot, the officials said. They declined to say precisely when Esseghaier, who appeared in court on Wednesday in Toronto, had traveled to Iran, whether he had gone there more than once, or whom he was in contact with while there. When they announced the arrest of Esseghaier and his alleged co-conspirator, Raed Jaser, this week, Canadian police said the two men had received 'direction and guidance' in the plot from 'al Qaeda elements in Iran.' U.S. national security sources close to the investigation said that was a reference to a network of low- to middle-level al Qaeda fixers and 'facilitators' based in the town of Zahedan, close to Iran's borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan, that moves money and fighters through Iran to support its activities in South Asia." http://t.uani.com/YYYhIu Reuters: "Along north Lebanon's highways, the portraits of Hezbollah militants who have died in skirmishes with Israel are fading. But there are glistening photos of those killed in Hezbollah's new fight. These men died in Syria, battling alongside the army of Hezbollah's close ally President Bashar al-Assad against rebel units in a conflict which has killed more than 70,000 people and risks reigniting Lebanon's 15-year sectarian civil war... Officially, Hezbollah denies fighting in Syria... But the secret is an open one. Michael Young, an opinion writer for the Beirut-based Daily Star, said in a column on Thursday that the pressure is likely coming from Shi'ite Iran, Hezbollah's main financier and supporter of Assad, who is himself an Alawite, an offshoot of Shi'ism. 'Hezbollah's becoming cannon fodder for the Syrian regime, at Iran's request, is not something the party must relish,' he wrote. 'There is a price to pay for Hezbollah's pushing the boundaries of Lebanon's sectarian system to its limits. And this price may be the party's gradual destruction, or worse, a Lebanese sectarian civil war.'" http://t.uani.com/17muT4t AP: "Two Iranian men arrested last year after a botched terror plot in Bangkok that allegedly targeted Israeli diplomats proclaimed their innocence Friday, telling a court they were unaware of the stash of homemade bombs found in the house they were staying in. Their lawyer had given similar accounts earlier, but their testimony Friday was the first in their own words since their trial began in December. Friday's testimony came more than a year after explosives blew apart a home where the men were staying in a residential Bangkok neighborhood on Valentine's Day last year. The explosion uncovered a plot that Thai authorities say was aimed at Israeli envoys and that Israel says was part of an Iranian-backed network of terror." http://t.uani.com/Zzr5fn   Nuclear Program Reuters: "Iran is ready to resume talks with world powers on its disputed nuclear program and awaits word from the European Union on timing and details, Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator said on Thursday. Ali Bagheri, in an interview with Reuters in Geneva, said Iran needed 20 percent-enriched uranium for its Tehran research reactor and four others being built, and was continuing to convert some of its stockpile into reactor fuel. 'We are waiting for Lady Ashton to call Dr. Jalili, and Dr. Jalili is obviously ready to take the call,' Bagheri said." http://t.uani.com/15W3KHj Reuters: "An Iranian scientist held for more than a year in California on charges of violating U.S. sanctions arrived in Muscat on Friday, after being freed in what the Omani foreign ministry said was a humanitarian gesture. Mojtaba Atarodi, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Sharif University of Technology, had been detained for allegedly buying high-tech U.S. laboratory equipment, previous Iranian media reports said." http://t.uani.com/Y1NgJ6 Sanctions Bloomberg: "Japan's crude imports from Iran fell 51 percent in March from a year ago, as the U.S. waived sanctions barring business with the Middle Eastern nation citing the declining purchases. Oil purchases for the month from Iran dropped to 863,502 kiloliters, or about 175,200 barrels a day, compared with 1.75 million kiloliters in March 2012, according to data today from the Ministry of Finance. Imports fell 40 percent from 1.43 million kiloliters in February, the data showed. Japan's total crude purchases fell 3.2 percent in March to 18.2 million kiloliters, the finance ministry said on April 18. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on March 13 extended Japan's exemption from sanctions on banks doing business with Iran for a third six-month term because of steps taken to reduce imports." http://t.uani.com/11Zgqq6 Terrorism AP: "Bulgarian investigators on Friday staged a re-enactment of the bus bombing that killed five Israeli tourists, the bus driver and the alleged perpetrator at the Burgas airport in July. The Europol-sponsored experiment, aimed to provide more details about the attack, was done at a police compound near the city of Ihtiman, 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Sofia. Officials said the results confirmed the facts they had previously established. In February, an official Bulgarian report said investigators had 'well-grounded reasons' to suggest that two men suspected in the attack belonged to the militant wing of the Shiite Islamist group Hezbollah. Iran is said to be a backer of Hezbollah, and Israel has accused Iran of involvement in the bombing. Bulgarian investigators said they have found no evidence tying Iran to the July 18, 2012, attack." http://t.uani.com/10hklxg Reuters: "Canadian police say they have foiled a plot they say was backed by 'al Qaeda elements in Iran' to derail a passenger train. Iran says it is opposed to the ideology of al Qaeda. Diplomats and officials say there is no evidence of active collaboration, though Iran in the past has allowed al Qaeda fighters to transit through its territory. Here are some details." http://t.uani.com/17mvJyc Domestic Politics Economist: "Four years ago the re-election of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which millions considered fraudulent and led to months of violent protest, marked the elimination of the country's reformists at the hands of their hard-line rivals. Now a new and equally bitter struggle is in full cry-between two different types of hardliner, fighting over an Islamic Republic that has been sapped by international sanctions. Less than two months before the presidential poll, the contest resembles nothing so much as a game of chicken. In the middle of the road stand Mr Ahmadinejad, the outgoing president, with his presumed dauphin: the suave, ambitious Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The two men are almost family; the president's son is married to Mr Mashaei's daughter. They also share apparently limitless reserves of self-confidence, disdain for the revolutionary old guard of crusty clerics, and a yen for millenarian Shiism that traditionalists see as almost heretical. The approaching juggernaut is manned by these same traditionalists. They long to be rid of Mr Ahmadinejad and fear that he intends to stay in charge after manoeuvring his nominee into the presidential palace. So, they are doing everything they can to stop Mr Mashaei from standing. They threaten him with disqualification by a vetting body, prepare legal cases against him and his other allies, and damn him as a fraud and as a 'friend of sedition.'" http://t.uani.com/YZ1vfd Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.