TEHRAN: Iranian state TV said Thursday that the body charged with vetting candidates has disqualified former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from running in next month’s presidential election.
It carried an Interior Ministry statement saying that President Hassan Rouhani has been approved to run for re-election, along with hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who is considered close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Ahmadinejad, who remains a deeply polarizing figure even among Iranian hard-liners, had shocked the country by registering last week. Khamenei had previously urged him not to run.
Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013, and was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust and his efforts to ramp up Iran’s nuclear program.
The Guardian Council, a cleric-dominated body that vets candidates, said it had compiled a final list of candidates earlier Thursday and that the Interior Ministry would announce their names by Sunday.
Others who made the cut, according to the statement carried by state TV, include Tehran’s hard-line Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, moderate Senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and former conservative culture minister Mostafa Mirsalim.
Hundreds of people registered to run. The Guardian Council, half of whose 12 members are clerics appointed by Khamenei, rejects all candidates who are seen as challenging clerical rule. Khamenei is Iran’s top decision-maker.
Ahmadinejad disqualified from Iran presidential election
Ahmadinejad disqualified from Iran presidential election
Syria says 120 Daesh detainees escaped prison; Kurdish website said 1,500 escaped
- The Syrian ministry said Syrian army units and ministry special forces entered Shaddadi following the breakout
CAIRO: Syria’s Interior Ministry said on Tuesday that about 120 Daesh detainees escaped from Shaddadi prison, after the Kurdish website Rudaw reported that a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Farhad Shami, said around 1,500 Daesh members had escaped.
The Syrian ministry said Syrian army units and ministry special forces entered Shaddadi following the breakout. It said security forces had recaptured 81 of the escapees after search and sweep operations in the town and surrounding areas, with efforts continuing to arrest the remaining fugitives.
Earlier, the Syrian army said “a number of” Daesh militants had escaped a prison that had been under SDF control in the eastern city of Shaddadi, accusing the SDF of releasing them.
After days of fighting with government forces, the SDF agreed on Sunday to withdraw from both Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, two Arab-majority provinces they had controlled for years and the location of Syria’s main oil fields.
