Iran on fire

There are conflicting reports from inside of Iran. Some sources claim there are 50-100 killed during the riots which is not so far fetched when you can gun shots in videos posted on the net. Shots heard being fired in streets of Tehran, mainly around the ministry of Interior building in Fatemi Square. The number of possible death of so many people might explain why the regime has all these journalists locked up and it might also explain why the communication network in Iran is shut off. They probably want to prevent the news from leaking out to the outside world.

From what I hear, the regime has cut off electricity to the city of Tehran. It's arrested around 30 reformist journalists and many of the reformist party chiefs are either under house arrest or detained by regime's security forces. As far as I know, the riots have spread to other major cities and towns in Iran. Shiraz, Isfahan, Babol, Tabriz and Kurdish towns in western Iran are centers of riots and anti-regime demonstrations. People keep chanting 'Death to Dictator'. Also what has made me very happy today was to see that people are now attacking police to get their detained friends back from the police custody. It seems people have now become more and more gutsy and this is a great thing to see. As long as people fear the system, the won't be able to challenge it in any way. The videos today proved to me that the image of the invincibility of this brutal regime is now shattered in the minds of people. This is a welcoming development.

What has surprised me so far is that the regime has not unleashed its own loyal Basiji militants yet. It may do so when the time is right but so far, it has not or I have not seen them in force in pictures and in reports from inside of Iran. My guts tell me, the regime has possibly made a big strategic miscalculation by denying Mousavi victory. Not that it mattered, since Mousavi or Ahmadinejad are part of the same brutal repressive system but dictatorships always fall because of minor mistakes they make. We'll see how this new series of anti-regime protests will be dealt with by the regime. It has certainly been digging its own grave for a long time. [MSNBC reports here]. 6 yrs ago in the same month, I was in middle of another student protest in Tehran myself. So now I'd like to wish all my fellow countrymen the best. Hope their efforts result in much needed change.
I'll keep you posted as things develop further in Iran.

Michael Ledeen has an excellent piece on the ongoing circus in Iran.

Tehran 24 has excellent photos

Updated @2pm ET on Jun 14: Radio Free Iran has more photos