In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Iranian Ambassador to Mexico Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri implicated the CIA in Neda Agha Soltan’s widely-publicized death.

Via the LA Times, here’s a snippet of the WTF-inducing exchange:

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we’re anxious to hear your government’s response to all of these developments which have been very dramatic over the past two weeks. A key question many people around the world are asking is, why did your security forces kill that 26 year-old beautiful student named Nada?

MOHAMMAD HASSAN GHADIRI, IRANIAN AMBASSADOR TO MEXICO: I prefer to answer this in Persian.

BLITZER: Go ahead.

GHADIRI (through translator): This death of Ms. Nada is very suspicious. She was shot from behind. The location was where there was not much demonstration, there was no police presence and the gun that shot and killed her was a smuggled gun. It was not a government-issued gun.

Blitzer is incredulous.

BLITZER:  Are you seriously accusing the CIA of killing Neda?

GHADIRI (through translator): We say that the bullet that was found in her head was not a bullet that you could find in Iran.

These are the bullets that the CIA and terrorist groups use. Of course they warned that there would be a bloodshed in these demonstrations and then they could attribute that to the Islamic republic. This is part of a common act of CIA in various countries.

BLITZER:  Do you really believe that, Mr. Ambassador?

You’re a distinguished diplomat representing Iran. This is a very serious accusation that you’re making, that the CIA was responsible for killing this beautiful, young woman.

GHADIRI (through translator): I’m not saying that the CIA had done this. There are different groups. Could be intelligence services, could be CIA, could be the terrorists.

Well, it’s nice to know the OMG terrorists don’t just terrorize us poor beleaguered Americans.

CIA spokesman George Little hit back at the allegations, saying:

“Any suggestion that the CIA was responsible for the death of this young woman is wrong, absurd and offensive.”

It should also be noted that Neda was, by most reports, shot in the chest- not the back or the head as Ghadiri seems to think. Ghadiri went on to accuse the international media of digging its propagandist claws into Iran, accusing news outlets of overlooking violent Moussavi supporters and unironically stating:

“Some of the reporters and mass media do not reflect the truth.”

Iranian ambassador implicates CIA in Neda Agha Soltan’s death is a post from: The Inquisitr

Images can become iconic extremely quickly, identifying movements with a visual is a powerful force in our visual world. What happens though when one of those iconic images turns out to be based on a mistake?

In the ongoing civil unrest in Iran no one image has become more iconic than the one of Neda Soltani, the young woman who was shot down in the streets. The big problem is that the image of Neda Soltani that is being flashed around the world may not be the actual picture of the Neda Soltani that was killed. According to Techdirt the picture we are seeing came about as a result of a misunderstanding of how Facebook works.

Basically, a woman named Amy Beam, who was interested in the Neda Soltani in the video contacted other Neda Soltani’s found on Facebook, and one communicated back with her, and eventually they "friended" each other on Facebook. Soon after, the "living" Neda Soltani posted a translation of an article about the killed Neda Soltani on Amy’s Facebook "wall." However, the way this works, is that along with the post on the wall, it includes the poster’s own avatar/profile photo — in this case the living Neda Soltani. From that, others who were friends of Amy saw the name Neda Soltani, the story about the killed woman, and the photo of the living woman — and assumed they were all the same woman… and from there the photo started spreading like wildfire, including websites, TV, banners and elsewhere. And the really scary part is that the living Neda Soltani is now quite afraid for her life, since she’s suddenly become "the face of the face of the struggle in Iran" despite not being the woman who was shot.

This mistaken picture of Neda has been flashed around the world, it is a part of our collective memories of this time in Iran. We even used the picture in one of our posts about the killing of Soltani. I haven’t been able to find a picture of the real Neda Soltani that was killed but as soon as one shows up we’ll let you know.

That picture of Neda everyone is using …. it’s the wrong one is a post from: The Inquisitr

Iran’s religious clerics in Qom and members of the Assembly of Experts, headed by Ayatollah [Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani, are mulling the formation of an alternative collective leadership to replace that of the supreme leader, sources in Qom told Al Arabiya on condition of anonymity.

These reports come on the heels of arrests and killings of protesters that most of us have seen splashed across our Twitter and Facebook status feeds, and it is these recent events that are being credited as the impetus of for the re-consideration of Iran’s governmental structure.

Though the death of the iconic Neda and others like her may have played a part, it is likely that the imprisonment of five family members of Rafsanjani may have played a much more directly influencing factor. Rafsanjani is considered, according to Al Arabiya, to be one of Iran’s most powerful man as the head of Assembly of Experts (the group of clerics responsible for the appointment and dismissal of the Supreme Leader) and the head of the Expediency Council (the group that arbitrates disputes between the parliament and the Guardian Council).

This is exactly what the movement’s calls for reform now entail.  The change of heart by Rafsanjani and the clerics may not have come at a better time, as ABC News reports along with other organizations that the recent rounds of brutality against protestors has demoralized the movements, and rallies have had much lower attendance today in Tehran:

The crackdown on protestors promised Saturday by the Iranian government appears to have worked, with few people on the streets of Tehran today, though there was violence overnight.

But as rallies failed to materialize, a female protestor reached by ABC News by telephone in Tehran complained about the lack of leadership.

Asked whether she is disappointed that the streets were so quiet, the female protestor, who did not give her name, said “yes.”

“Of course it is! It’s really sad. People getting killed, people doing everything in their power to go against the regime after 30 years and we don’t have the support here. We don’t have proper leadership,” she said.

Iran’s Voice is Heard: Clerics Consider Alternative to ‘Supreme Leader’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

The fellow’s name is Hamed, and he described how he came into possession of the video, and the speed at which it propagated across the web.

Listen!

“I was collecting information on my Yahoo 360 blog, as it wasn’t blocked in Iran. At the same time one of my friends on Facebook wrote ‘My wife just came home, and someone was killed next to her.’ I reported this on my weblog, but as I was not sure, I removed it some minutes later.”

“I called to one of my friends who was at the same location and ask him what was going on over there. He said ‘nothing.’ I said ‘Are you sure?’ He said ‘I will go out and report to you.’ I didn’t get anything from him. I called to one of my other friends in Tehran on his landline, and he answered me and said that friend went to the roof of his home and said there was smoke.”

“Just at this time, another friend a wrote to me a girl is killed next to me right now. He asked me is it possible to publish through you the video that I took next to me right now. I said, ‘absolutely.’ He emailed it to me. I was ready to send it to CNN and BBC. I published it to CNN and sent it two times to BBC. I sent it to YouTube and to Facebook. Five minutes later, it started to get several email and messages, and published everywhere.”

Hamed is protecting the identity of the one who took the movie.

Interview with the YouTube User Behind Neda’s Video [#neda] is a post from: The Inquisitr

“Nada Iran,” a young girl killed by security forces in Iran has become a martyr for the protesters who are still fronting the streets every day.

Footage of Neda, who has become know as Neda Iran (Neda is “voice” in the local language, hence the translation of roughly Voice of Iran) shows her on the street, bleeding and dying after appearing to have been shot by Iranian Government security forces. Her death has been widely reported and discussed on Iranian blogs, and is only this morning coming to the full attention of the West.

As the situation worsens in Iran, the sad truth is that Neda Iran wont be the last to fall in the valiant struggle for freedom.

Here’s the Neda Iran video. A strict warning: the Neda Iran video contains deeply disturbing images:

Video: Neda Iran, one life lost for a greater cause is a post from: The Inquisitr