Hardliners Close in on Mousavi

Tehran Bureau – Excerpt: “Ahmad Yazdanfar, senior aide and advisor to Mir Hossein Mousavi and head of the team of bodyguards that protects him, has been arrested by the Islamic Republic’s security forces. A former officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Yazdanfar has been Mousavi’s bodyguard since 1983, and protected him at the height of the assassination campaign carried out by the Mojahedin-Khalgh Organization in the 1980s, when Mousavi was prime minister. He has been injured many times protecting Mousavi. The arrest, apparently made at midnight on Saturday, May 15, was announced by Mousavi’s website, Kalameh, on Tuesday. Mousavi has asked the entire staff of his office not to report to work. He has stated that Yazdanfar’s arrest is part of a larger plan aimed either at his own arrest ahead of the June 12 anniversary of last year’s rigged election, or at least his house arrest in order to prevent him from organizing peaceful demonstrations on the anniversary date.”