Khamenei has referred to defeated presidential contenders Mehdi Karoubi and Mir Hossein Moussavi as opportunists who wish to accentuate “domestic matters” in order to harm the ruling system and to exploit the event for their own benefit. Despite all this, Khamenei does not deem the arrests of Karoubi and Moussavi as prudent under the circumstances and has said that this must only be done through “legal” channels.
Khamenei’s faction is also frightened about the presence of dozens of foreign reporters in Iran and the possibility of reports produced regarding tomorrow’s protest. Regime officials are using all means to prevent journalists from covering the people’s widespread protests. They seek to fend off foreign reporters’ coverage of scenes of clashes and protests.
Commanders of the regime’s suppressive forces are anticipating the primary location of the protests to be at the northern avenue of Palestine Square. In order to avoid this, they are planning to station a dense population of agents from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) or so-called plainclothes agents and the paramilitary Bassij and fill the square with their forces to curb protest gatherings. As such, the number of protestors would be limited to an extent that their slogans and protests would be lost and ineffective in the midst of the suppressive agents’ presence.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 17, 2009