Guardian report.

Iran's largest private university has become the focus of a bitter political battle for control between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his most powerful rival, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Mirroring intense factional conflicts since last year's contested elections, rival factions are in a power struggle for Azad Islamic University in Tehran, which has hundreds of campuses across Iran and assets worth tens of billions of dollars.

Reuters report.

Iran's Red Crescent Society has cancelled a plan to send a shipload of aid to the Gaza Strip, saying it was denied access to pass through the Suez Canal, a claim rejected by an Egyptian official.

A ship had been due to set off from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas over the last few days as part of Iran's support to efforts to break Israel's blockade of the strip.

Brian Whitaker on the Guardian's CiF.

Derakhshan, who has been imprisoned since his arrest in November 2008, is accused of "propaganda against the Islamic regime, propaganda in favour of anti-Iranian regime political groups, managing and running lurid and immoral websites and co-operating with hostile governments," according to the Fars news agency.

BBC report.

Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) it will not allow two of its inspectors to enter the country, state media report.

The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, said they had prematurely published a report he described as "untruthful". Mr Salehi did not say which parts of the report he considered inaccurate.

Times report, possibly to be treated with some caution.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom's air defences will return to full alert.

Guardian report.

Iran has warned that it could send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort humanitarian aid convoys seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza -- a move that would certainly be challenged by Israel.

Any such Iranian involvement, raised today by an aide to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would constitute a serious escalation of already high tensions with Israel, which accuses Tehran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon and of backing Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza.

BBC report.

A video broadcast by Iranian TV purports to show Mr Amiri saying he was kidnapped and is living in Arizona.

Hours later, another video posted on YouTube appeared to show the scientist saying he was happy in America. The US denied abducting him.

Times report.

Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.

The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.

AFP report.

Opposition sympathiser and powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has ratcheted up the pressure on the Iranian regime ahead of the first anniversary of the disputed presidential election.

The former president's website has again posted scathing pro-opposition remarks he made last year that criticised both the regime and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself.

BBC report.

Israel says it will not take part in a conference aimed at achieving a nuclear-arms free Middle East, proposed at a UN meeting in New York.

PressTV report.

Iranian naval forces have detected a US nuclear submarine in the Persian Gulf waters, amid growing concerns over the safety of one of the most important energy routes in the world.

An Iranian patrol spotted the nuclear-armed and -powered submarine in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which allows the passage of 90 percent of the oil produced by Persian Gulf states to Asia, the US and Western Europe.

Jerusalem Post report.

Although it is obvious that the Pentagon has contingency plans for all possible scenarios, one Israeli official said this was "the first time that the public is getting word of practical preparations of military activity."

Robert Dreyfuss in the Nation.

If President Obama knew about this, authorized it and still supports it, then Obama has crossed a red line, and the president will stand revealed as an aggressive, militaristic liberal interventionist who bears a closer resemblance to the president he succeeded than to the ephemeral reformer that he pretended to be in 2008, when he ran for office. If he didn't know, if he didn't understand the order, and if he's unwilling to cancel it now that it's been publicized, then Obama is a feckless incompetent. Take your pick.

Independent report.

Iran today warned the US to back its nuclear fuel swap offer or lose an "historic" chance of improving relations between the countries.

Washington has denounced the Iranian offer - brokered last week by Brazil and Turkey - as a ploy to avoid a new round of UN sanctions over its controversial nuclear programme, which the West fears is geared toward nuclear weapons.

The Leveretts comment.

When, in an Op Ed published in The New York Times in May 2009, we first criticized President Obama's early decision to continue covert anti-Iranian programs he inherited from George W. Bush, some expressed disbelief that Obama would undermine his own rhetoric about engaging Tehran in a climate of mutual respect by conducting a dirty war against the Islamic Republic. But, in an important piece of reporting published today in The New York Times, Mark Mazzetti documents that Obama has not just failed to roll back covert anti-Iranian programs he inherited from his predecessor--he is instead presiding over a dramatic intensification of America's covert war against the Islamic Republic. And, in a manner powerfully reminiscent of Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the intensification of America's covert war against Iran is taking place through the efforts of General David Petraeus and CENTCOM--because military intelligence operations are not subject to the same congressional oversight and reporting requirements as the Central Intelligence Agency.

New York Times report.

The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents.