JAGHORI, Afghanistan | Swaying from the sunroof of a dirt-streaked 4x4, Abdullah Abdullah could only grin.
In his first visit to this poor, ethnic-Hazara enclave in east-central Afghanistan, the Tajik-Pashtun candidate for president was received by more than 1,000 people who jostled to get a clear look at him, snatched pictures with cell phone cameras and killed a cow in his honor.
Beyond the power struggle playing out on the streets of Tehran is a complex battle for control of Iran's intelligence ministry -- a pivotal institution in the regime's repression of dissent.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who began a second term this week, fired Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei late last month after Mr. Ejei objected to the president's efforts to name an in-law as first vice president.
Iran's Islamic revolution three decades ago reached a crucial turning point when a policeman failed to dislodge a man from simply standing at a crossroads in Tehran.
Surrounded by a tense crowd, the policeman could neither beat up the man nor reason with him, according to journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski's book, "Shah of Shahs." Instead, the humiliated officer slinked away. Within hours, news of the incident had spread through Tehran, giving a huge psychological boost to the opposition.
From the days of the shah, Evin prison has had a fearsome reputation in Iran as the place where political prisoners are taken for rough interrogation and even execution.
But the facility in northern Tehran appears to have been eclipsed since the disputed June 12 presidential election by perhaps dozens of informal detention sites spread throughout the Iranian capital and suburbs.
Female flight attendants in head scarves had begun attending to passengers inside the Iran Air aircraft bound for Dubai. But as long as the plane remained on the tarmac, I couldn't feel free.
What began as a planned, weeklong trip to cover Iran's presidential elections had turned into a monthlong saga that included nearly three weeks of solitary confinement and a final indignity: a night in a jail cell at the airport for no apparent reason. Perhaps an alternative power center ordered that I be kept, or the same faction that had decided to release me had second thoughts.
Sobered by the backlash from civilian casualties, the U.S. military is taking steps to tighten restrictions on the use of air power over Afghanistan.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, will order U.S. and NATO forces to break away from engagements with militants who are hiding among villagers as part of a comprehensive "tactical directive," a coalition official said Tuesday.
Women's rights activist courts controversy, rails against warlords.
Iran's guardians of the Islamic revolution struck back Tuesday by sending thousands of supporters of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the streets and ordering foreign journalists to stay indoors.
But rival rallies quickly turned the capital into a schizophrenic panorama of competing demonstrations.
Backers of Mr. Ahmadinejad filled the screens of state-run television while supporters of rival candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took over Vali Asr Avenue, the city's north-south spine, for the second consecutive day.
Based on his resume, Mir Hossein Mousavi is an unlikely hero to have sparked the massive protests that have paralyzed Iran's capital since presidential elections Friday ended in allegations of fraud.
A supporter of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, Mr. Mousavi was Iran's prime minister in the 1980s when the nation revived a nuclear program that now worries its neighbors and the West.
In an outpouring of people power not seen here since the 1979 Iranian revolution, tens of thousands of Iranians marched through the streets of Tehran on Monday to protest allegations that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won re-election through massive fraud.
Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who many here think was the real victor of Friday's elections, emerged from seclusion for the first time since the vote to address the crowd, which was estimated to number as many as 1.5 million people.
An election that began with a record number of Iranians peacefully seeking to choose their president ended Saturday in protest demonstrations and a violent crackdown that undermined the legitimacy of the Islamic regime.
Iranian officials - including the Muslim cleric who wields the ultimate power in the country, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - insisted that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been re-elected by a margin of more than 10 million votes over his main challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
Protesters chanting "God is great" grew angrier in Tehran and other cities Sunday as incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that he had won re-election fairly and police arrested more than 100 opposition supporters.
The regime mobilized thousands of Ahmadinejad supporters for a counterdemonstration in central Tehran's Vali Asr Square -- the scene of anti-Ahmadinejad riots Saturday -- to cheer the president and lambaste his opponents, the West and its media.
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