Iranian Police surrounded the campus of Tehran University today, trapping hundreds of students protesting what they said were fabricated government images showing the burning of a photo of the revered founder of the Islamic republic.

SECURITY forces and militiamen clashed with thousands of protesters shouting “death to the dictator” outside Tehran University yesterday, beating them with batons and firing tear gas on a day of nationwide student demonstrations, witnesses said.

Thousands of riot police and Revolutionary Guard members armed with tear gas, batons and firearms were deployed outside Tehran University today to prevent student demonstrations backed by the opposition.

Hundreds of police in Iran have been deployed around Tehran University to prevent protests against President Ahmadinejad.

Hard-liners have attacked senior pro-reform leaders in the streets of Tehran as tens of thousands marched in competing mass demonstrations organised by opposition and government supporters.

Thousands of Iranian anti-government protesters clashed with hard-liners on the streets of Tehran today as marches turned into running battles.

IRAN’S hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned his political rivals that their efforts to drive a wedge between him and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would come to nothing.

Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani today issued a direct challenge to the country’s supreme leader over the disputed election.

Thousands of protesters streamed down streets in Tehran, chanting “death to the dictator” and defying security forces who fired tear gas and charged with batons, witnesses said.

HUNDREDS of young men and women chanted “Death to the dictator”, confronting police wielding batons and firing tear gas in the capital yesterday as opposition activists sought to revive street protests despite authorities’ vows to “smash” any new marches.

YOUTUBE frames of “Neda”, a young Iranian woman whose face is covered in blood, are a horrific image of what some are calling the Tehran spring. They also show the genie unleashed by citizen journalists.

Police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in Tehran today in open defiance of Iran’s clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

More than 100,000 opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defied an Iranian Interior Ministry ban today and streamed into central Tehran to cheer their pro-reform leader in his first public appearance since elections that he alleges were marred by fraud.

AN Iranian cleric said yesterday that the religious edict calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie cannot be revoked, and he warned Britain was defying the Islamic world by granting the author knighthood.

IRAN’S hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called yesterday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country’s universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.

THE West cannot push Iran around as it has Libya and Iraq, a former Iranian president said yesterday.

Iranians packed polling stations today in a presidential race too close to call between a well-known political moderate and his hardline rival seeking to reclaim the values of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

More than 80 villages were seriously damaged by a strong earthquake that hit northern Iran today, killing at least eight people.

A 5.5-magnitude earthquake damaged homes in northern Iran today and there were reports of casualties.

Officials in Iran fear that up to 40,000 people may have died when a powerful earthquake reduced much of a city to rubble.

An earthquake destroyed 60% of the housing in a city in southeast Iran early today, killing many people as they slept, state television reported.

Iranian sisters Iranian Laleh and Laden Bijani died today, more than 48 hours into marathon surgery to separate the 29-year-olds who had been born joined at the head.

Ladan Bijani, one of two Iranian twins joined at the head, died today shortly after being separated from her sister, doctors in Singapore said.

One of the Iranian conjoined twins separated during a major operation today has died, a hospital spokesman has confirmed.

EVEN after spending their lives on a quest to be separated, 29-year-old Iranian twins Ladan and Laleh Bijani have told friends that they dream of travelling the world together if a high-risk operation succeeds.

THE head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency yesterday appealed to Iran to cooperate with additional inspections to prove the peaceful nature of its nuclear programmes.

Hundreds of pro-cleric militants and security forces clashed with Iranians throughout the capital for a fourth night, firing machine guns in the air and using tear gas and batons to put down any public opposition to the country’s hard-line regime.

Hundreds of protesters called for the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei as thousands of onlookers watched early today, the third day of demonstrations in Tehran despite threats by the hard-line regime to crack down to end the disturbances.

Clashes erupted for a second straight night in Tehran, with anti-riot police and hard-line vigilantes beating up teenage demonstrators who had taken to the streets to denounce supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Siamese twins joined at the head left Iran for Singapore today for medical tests and possible surgery to separate them after 28 years of shared life.

A strong earthquake rocked north-western Iran today, killing at least 500 people and injuring about 1,600, Iran’s state-run media reported.

At least 200 people have been killed in an earthquake in western Iran, the official news agency reported today.