Iran Ready to Dispatch Peacekeepers to Britain

A senior Iranian military commander announced that Tehran is prepared to dispatch peacekeepers to London to help restore calm in the city as unrests continue in the British capital. "The Ashura brigades of Basij forces are ready to be dispatched to London as peacekeeping forces," Commander of Iran's Basij (volunteer) forces Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said on Thursday. Naqdi criticized the British authorities for their harsh crackdown of protesters and describing them as rioters and hooligans. "Unfortunately the crimes and violence of the autocratic British kingdom continues against the country's deprived [population] and not only the advice of well-wishers has no effect on the conduct of the regime's repressive police force but we witness the deprived people of this country are being called a bunch of thieves and looters," he regretted. Naqdi expressed disappointment with the UN Security Council as invariably supporting oppressors. "If the UN General Assembly approves, the Basij Organization is ready to send a number of Ashura and al-Zahra brigades to Liverpool and Birmingham as peacekeepers to monitor observation of human rights laws and deter use of force," he added. Naqdi referred to UK Prince Williams' lavish wedding and the high cost of its live coverage and described the recent uprisings in Britain as the result of "big mistakes" by British officials and warned them of even more severe consequences. "This is the beginning if the road and the UK regime has to pay the price for the massacres in Africa, wars and bloodshed in the Indian peninsula, crimes in China, the fall of the Ottoman Empire and bloody conflicts among Muslims and followers of other faiths," he added. He said the uprising in Britain even if oppressed at this stage is far deeper than a political unrest or factional conflict to be resolved easily. "This wound will come to a head elsewhere…The people of Britain have awakened and will definitely take their rights back," he stated. The unrest in Britain began on August 6 in the north London suburb of Tottenham after a few hundred people gathered outside a police station to protest the fatal police shooting of a black man Mark Duggan. The country's worst unrests since the 1980s has now spilled over into major cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, and Bristol. Five people have reportedly died and hundreds of others have been arrested so far.