Report: Defeated Ahmadinejad Rival Arrested in Iran

Just a day after being reelected Iranian President Ahmadinejad and his Mullah backers apparently want to flex some muscle as his main rival has been arrested. Anyone who thinks that the Mullahs will ever be taken from power without bloodshed is only kidding themselves.

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin.

Report: Defeated Ahmadinejad Rival Arrested in Iran
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies

Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was arrested Saturday shortly after he was defeated at the polls by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an unofficial source reported.

According to the source, the presidential hopeful was arrested en route to the home of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that were a number of contradictory reports from Iran on Saturday, in a large part due to the heavy restrictions imposed on the media in the Islamic Republic, in particular on foreign reporters.

It was also reported Saturday that former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani resigned from all of his official positions in protest against the results of the election, which Mousavi denounced as rigged.

Supporters of Mousavi, the main election challenger to Ahmadinejad, earlier clashed with police Saturday as authorities declared that the hard-line Iranian president was re-elected in a landslide. Opponents responded with the most serious unrest in the capital in a decade and charges that the result was the work of a dictatorship.

By nightfall, cell phone service appeared to have been cut in the capital
Tehran. And Ahmadinejad, in a nationally televised victory speech, accused the foreign media of coverage that harms the Iranian people. There was more rioting at night and fires continued to burn on the streets of Tehran.

Several hundred demonstrators - many wearing the trademark green colors of pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign - chanted the government lied to the people and gathered near the Interior Ministry as the final count from Friday's presidential election was announced.

It gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 to Mousavi - a
former prime minister who has become the hero of a youth-driven movement
seeking greater liberties and a gentler face for Iran abroad.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, closed the door on any chance he could use his limitless powers to intervene in the disputes from Friday's election. In a message on state TV, he urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, calling the result a divine assessment.

Mousavi rejected the result as rigged and urged his supporters to resist a government of lies and dictatorship.

"I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation," said a statemnt on Mousavi's Web site. "The outcome of what we've seen from the performance of officials ... is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Repulec of Iran's sacred system and governance of lies and dictatorship," it added.

Mousavi warned people won't respect those who take power through fraud. The headline on one of his Web sites read: "I won't give in to this dangerous manipulation."

Mousavi appealed directly to Khamenei to intervene and stop what he said were violations of the law. Khamenei, who is not elected, holds ultimate political authority in Iran and controls all major policy decisions.

Mousavi and key aides could not be reached by phone.

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