Iranian women complain of a shortage of suitable marriage prospects

The Iranian government is to set up a network of marriage bureaux to help young Iranians find a husband or wife.

The centres aim to advise people on the traditional way of finding a spouse.

Finding a suitable partner is a tricky business as men and women are limited in how much they can meet socially, BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne says.

Most Iranian marriages are not exactly arranged, but relatives often take it on themselves to introduce suitable candidates.

There are even reported to be private matchmaking organisations, effectively dating agencies, some of them run by clerics.

‘Unsuitable boys’

The government used the anniversary of the marriage of Ali, the first Shia Iman, to Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, to announce a series of measures to boost the institution.

Centres will be established to give advice to young people on how to find a spouse. And banks will issue more loans to pay for weddings.

Sermons in a number of Friday prayers across Iran marked the anniversary by echoing the message of the government and calling for marriage to be made easier.

It seems the government is worried that some young Iranians might be getting into unsuitable relationships, our correspondent says.

And, now that more than 60% percent of university students are female, many Iranian women are complaining they can’t find a husband to match their level of education.

But even in the Islamic Republic, young men and women still do manage to exchange phone numbers and even to arrange the occasional illicit rendezvous, our correspondent adds.

The Iranian parliament has thrown its weight behind Sadeq Mahsouli, allowing the nominee to assume the post of interior minister.

Some 138 members of parliament voted for Mahsouli; 112 lawmakers voted against him and 20 abstained.

The Iranian Majlis (parliament) dismissed the former interior minister, Ali Kordan, on November 4 over his forged Oxford University degree. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated his aide, Mahsouli, to take the position.

“It’s been nearly six months that the Interior Ministry has been facing unstable conditions; it is against the country’s interests for the ministry to remain without a minister,” President Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday prior to the vote.

Earlier on Sunday, Mahsouli failed to win the support of the Principlist camp; over 80 lawmakers voted against him and nearly 60 voted in his support.

The 49-year-old Mahsouli is a veteran of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corp (IRGC) and has served in provincial government posts and also as a deputy defense minister.

One of the major controversies surrounding Mahsouli was his vast wealth. Mahsouli, who accumulated his wealth through property development over the past 10 years, is reportedly among the ten wealthiest people in Iran.

The parliament support came after President Ahmadinejad defended his nominee for the post and expounded on Mahsouli’s experience.

Mahsouli holds a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.

The abduction of an Iranian attaché in Pakistan can be interpreted as the onset of war between Iran and al-Qaeda, says a senior militant.

“This is payback time for Iran and for its active involvement in destabilizing the Taliban government in Afghanistan and for facilitating the US-led invasion on Afghanistan through pro-Iranian Afghan groups,” Italy’s Adnkronos International news agency quoted a senior militant as saying on condition of anonymity.

“[The diplomat was kidnapped in retaliation for] the arrest of top al-Qaeda leaders in Iran, for facilitating the US invasion on Iraq through pro-Iran militias and last but not the least for waging the war on the Taliban,” claimed the militant.

The news agency did not reveal whether the questioned militant had ties with al-Qaeda.

Unknown gunmen kidnapped Iranian diplomat Heshmatullah Attarzadeh-Niyaki on his way to the Iranian consulate on Thursday in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. His driver was killed during the attack.

Pakistani police have so far arrested five suspects in connection with the case, but the whereabouts of Attarsadeh-Niyaki is still unknown.

A senior Pakistani political advisor, Rehman Malik, said Friday that the unidentified gunmen belonged to the notorious Taliban umbrella group, Tehrik-e-Taliban, although no group has yet claimed responsibility.

The anonymous militant claimed that al-Qaeda will carry out ‘more attacks and actions… against Iranian interests in coming days’.

The Islamic Republic was a leading opponent of the Taliban when the radical regime ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. The two neighbors came close to war in 1998 after the Taliban killed nine Iranian diplomats in the central Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

While US officials continue to accuse Iran of arming militants in Afghanistan and destabilizing Iraq, an October report by the MIT Center for International Studies confirmed that Tehran made major contributions to the war against the Taliban following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Suspicion for the kidnapping will inevitably fall on the Taliban and affiliated Sunni Muslim militant groups such as al Qaeda, who hate Shi’ite Muslims and predominantly Shi’ite Iran almost as much as they hate the West.

Criminal gangs using religion as a cover are also active in the area.

Spiralling violence has raised fears that nuclear-armed Pakistan could slide into chaos unless the 7-month-old civilian government, also faced with a potentially crippling economic crisis, and the army can throttle the militant threat.

Pakistan’s support is seen as vital to the West’s efforts to defeat al Qaeda globally and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Iranian consulate in Peshawar confirmed that commercial attache Heshmatollah Atharzadeh had been kidnapped. A policeman assigned to guard him was shot and killed trying to resist the assailants, police said.

“On hearing guns shots, I rushed out of my home and saw the body of the guard lying there,” Abid Hussain, a neighbor of the diplomat, told Reuters.

“By that time Atharzadeh had been taken away.”

The Iranian diplomat was on his way to the consulate from his home when his car was ambushed in Hayatabad, a neighborhood bordering the Khyber tribal region.

U.S. aid worker Steve Vance and his driver were killed outside the home where Vance lived with his wife and five children in Peshawar Wednesday.

In late August, three members of the U.S. consulate in Peshawar escaped unhurt after gunmen ambushed their vehicle.

Peshawar is the last city on the road to the Khyber Pass, the main land route to Afghanistan. Militants seized 13 trucks laden with supplies for Western forces on the road Monday.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in Washington late Wednesday that the consulate in Peshawar had put out a notification urging employees and other Americans in the area to stay at home or in their offices until further notice.

Afghanistan’s ambassador-designate was kidnapped in Hayatabad on September 22, and there has been a rash of other kidnappings in recent weeks, including a Polish engineer snatched in the nearby city of Attock last month.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan, Mashollah Shakeri, as saying that under diplomatic conventions, “Islamabad is responsible for the safety of Iranian diplomats.”
BAD BLOOD

Peshawar became a den of spies and jihadis in the 1980s when the United States and Saudi Arabia covertly funded a mujahideen guerrilla war to expel the Soviet army from Afghanistan.

To this day, Pakistani officials, usually privately, voice suspicions that neighboring countries are stirring trouble in the tribal lands as they compete for influence in Afghanistan.

Pakistan also has a history of sectarian violence between militants from the majority Sunni and minority Shi’ite sects.

Thousands of people have been killed since the 1980s. Earlier this year, almost 200 people were killed in sectarian clashes that erupted in the Kurram tribal region.

A scare gripped Peshawar earlier this year after supposed Taliban fighters were spotted driving into the city in daylight to intimidate video shop owners and barbers, targeted because of the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islam.

Security forces subsequently launched punitive operations in adjoining tribal areas targeting gangs said to have been using Islamist zeal to mask their criminal activities.

Militants have retaliated against a military offensive in the Bajaur tribal region, while a series of U.S. missile strikes in the Waziristan tribal region have added to tensions.

Two suicide attacks earlier this week in Peshawar and a nearby town underlined the mounting sense of insecurity.

Iran tests-fires a new generation of surface-to-surface missile, state television reports on Wednesday, November 12.

Iran’s armed forces have staged frequent manoeuvres in recent months, coinciding with speculation of possible U.S. or Israeli strikes against the Islamic Republic over its disputed nuclear ambitions.

“Iran successfully test-fires new generation of ground-to-ground missiles,” state television said in a scrolling headline. The missile has the name Sejil on its upper body.

Iran has said it would respond to any attack on its territory by targeting U.S. interests and Washington’s ally Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for world oil supplies.