Today’s idea: Venezuela, Iran and Russia together pose a serious threat to American objectives worldwide, a foreign affairs scholar writes, dubbing the combined peril the “Virus.” Go to NY Times.

WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday warned that al-Qaida is quietly hunting for an atomic bomb, adding urgency to a historic summit next week where President Barack Obama will try to persuade world leaders to step up efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. Go to AP.

How the persecution of Islamists across North Africa, in the name of fighting terrorism, is sowing the seeds for future instability. Go to Foreign Policy.

Free Iran:  On a lighter note, the next you meet a girl with a body to die for…

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Iran leads the list of countries that have failed to crack down on money laundering and terrorist financing, the Financial Action Task Force, a global standard-setting body, said Thursday.

The task force, based at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, reiterated a recommendation from last year that its members apply “effective countermeasures to protect their financial sectors from money laundering and financing of terrorism risks emanating from Iran.”

The task force did, however, welcome the fact that Tehran had recently started to “engage” with it. The moves appear to be mainly symbolic, however, as many countries have already taken steps to limit their companies’ economic exchanges with Iran.

The announcement was made at the same time that moves are afoot at the United Nations, led by Washington, to apply tougher sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program. China, a major importer of Iranian oil, has so far appeared reluctant to agree to impose stiffer sanctions. Go to NY Times.

IND:  I am not a fan of STRATFOR’s Iran analysis but unfortunately they have a following in DC.  Their Analyst Kamran Bokhari examines the implications of a series of violent — and mostly unexplained — attacks that have unfolded in Iran since September.  To me this presentation’s ending seems to almost endorse supporting secessionist groups.  But you be the judge.   Below, Dr. George Friedman discusses the rise of Turkey as a new regional power and the implications for other parts of the Middle East — one of many changes the world will experience by 2020. His analysis of Turkey seems off because as Turkey embraces free enterprise and frees its economy from statism, it would have a moderating influence throughout the region.  The positive ramifications of its correct economic policies would far outweigh the negative consequences of its recent tilt towards Iran.

Washington Post: Iran has arrested four suspects in the killing of a prosecutor in an attack which a judiciary official said may have been carried out by Kurdish guerrillas, Iranian media reported on Tuesday.

“So far, no group has claimed responsibility for this terrorist act,” provincial judiciary chief Mohammad Ali Mousavi was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

“But in view of the threats and plans the PJAK group had announced previously, it is probable that this group is involved in the assassination,” he said.

Iranian security forces often clash with guerrillas from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which took up arms in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey.

NY Times: An Iranian official says Kurdish rebels may have been involved in the assassination of a court prosecutor in the country’s northwest.  Gunmen fatally shot Vali Hajgholizadeh outside his home late Monday in the town of Khoy, near the Turkish border.

Washington Post:  The prosecutor of a northwestern Iranian city has been assassinated, ISNA news agency reported on Monday.

ISNA did not give any further details but quoted a provincial judiciary official as saying “investigations were underway to identify those behind the killing” of Khoy’s prosecutor.

ISNA’s report came six days after a remote-controlled bomb killed a university scientist in Tehran.

RFE:  The official IRNA news agency quoted a police official as saying the prosecutor, Vali Haji Gholizadeh, was shot dead in front of his home late tonight.

Haji Gholizadeh was the prosecutor of Khoy city, with a population of around 180,000 people in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province which borders Turkey and Iraq.

Western and northwestern Iran is home to large Kurdish and Azeri minorities. These border areas are scenes of sporadic clashes between security forces and armed rebels.

A man set off an explosive device near a provincial governor’s office in northeastern Iran on Saturday night, fatally wounding himself but causing no other damage, an Iranian news agency reported.

The incident, four days after a remote-controlled bomb killed a university scientist in Tehran, occurred in Mashhad, one of the Islamic Republic’s largest cities, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

The explosive device went off when security personnel near the office of the governor of Khorasan Razavi province approached the man after he had raised their suspicions.

“The person carrying the device was critically wounded and taken to hospital. Police are investigating the case,” Fars said, giving no other detail.

The man later died from his wounds, Fars said.

A senior security official, Mahhad Amirolah Shamqadri, said three young men were involved in the incident, including the one who died, but that it had not been politically-motivated.

“None of the three had political links,” Fars quoted him as saying.

Such incidents are relatively rare in Iran, which borders volatile Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Go to Reuters.

A few minutes later, a group of several hundred students and scholars, most of them from the Tehran University physics department where he worked, arrived, carrying a banner that described Ali-Mohammadi as a martyr. They surveyed the scene.

One university teacher shouted out. “We will follow them,” he said, pointing to the other crowd. “But we keep our distance from them. We are representing Tehran University.”

Police became agitated. They tried to persuade the Tehran University crowd to join the others in the procession.

But the students and academics resisted and kept their slow pace to assure their distance, and refused to take part in the sloganeering.

“La ilaha illallah,” they whispered over and over. “There is no god but Allah.”

Next, some of the plainclothes security officials, bearded men in walkie-talkies, approached the Tehran University crowd, asking them to join the official procession. But they refused. A scuffle broke out. A few people were briefly detained. Go to LA Times.

The funeral Thursday for an Iranian physics professor killed in a mysterious bomb attack turned into competing demonstrations by pro- and anti-government supporters with hundreds of security forces standing by.

Witnesses said half of about 1,000 people at the funeral for Masoud Ali Mohammadi were opposition supporters and there were some minor scuffles with police during the burial. Some carried green banners, the color symbolizing their movement, and shouted support for the opposition. The other side chanted “Down with the U.S.” and “Death to Israel” as mourners carried the body shrouded in an Iranian flag on their shoulders. Go to Washington Post.

Two former Iranian presidents on Wednesday condemned a bomb attack that killed a physics professor who had backed the country’s opposition leader, calling the remote-controlled blast an act of terrorism that could deepen unrest and violence.

The separate statements by Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani did not directly accuse any group of detonating the bomb-rigged motorcycle Tuesday that killed the 50-year-old researcher and lecturer, whose work included some aspects of nuclear theory. But each honored Massoud Ali-Mohammadi as a victim of terrorism. Go to Washington Post.

Iran’s influential parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, said a U.S.-based pro-monarchy group had claimed responsibility for the attack, adding it was controlled by the CIA. Iran’s Fars News Agency on Tuesday said such an exile group had claimed the bombing in a statement, without saying how it obtained it.

“An American-based monarchy group … claimed responsibility for this terrorist act,” Larijani said, the state broadcaster reported. “Maybe the CIA and the Zionist regime (Israel) thought they can mislead us with such an absurd statement.”

“We had clear information several days ago that the intelligence apparatus of the Zionist regime and the CIA wanted to implement terrorist acts in Tehran,” he said.

Using such a “rootless group” as a cover was a new “disgrace” for U.S. President Barack Obama, Larijani said. “Why do you host this terrorist group in America?” he asked.

In Washington on Tuesday, a U.S. intelligence official said the CIA played no role in the bombing in Tehran. Go to Reuters.

IND:  If this story is even remotely true, it underscores the futility of how America is fighting against radical Islam.  To defeat radical Islamists, America must help Iran’s democrats so Iran could become a prosperous, democratic role model for the Middle East.  Without a successful example in a major Islamic country, all the efforts of the CIA, NSA, State, Pentagon, etc. won’t ultimately save us from the terrorists.  We need to change the whole atmosphere of the region.

US intelligence officials believe that the suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan last month was planned with the help of Osama bin Laden’s close allies, raising fears that the al-Qaeda leader is enjoying a lethal resurgence.  They think that the attack could not have taken place without the prior knowledge and assistance of the Haqqanis, the powerful Taleban group thought to be shielding bin Laden.

The Haqqanis control a large block of territory on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border near the Afghan town of Khost, a Taleban hotbed near where the CIA officials were killed on December 30. It is also where the US believes bin Laden is hiding.

One former CIA officer, who did not wish to be named, told The Times that the agency had taped evidence of a Pakistani army officer tipping the Haqqanis off about a raid and a member of Pakistan’s intelligence service boasting that the “Haqqanis are our guys”. Go to Times UK.

IND:  Yet another way the regime  humiliates the Iranian people and makes them suffer…

All travelers flying into the U.S. from nations considered high risk will be patted down and have carry-on luggage searched under new security procedures starting Monday, the Transportation Security Administration said Sunday.

At least seven countries are on the high risk list: Nigeria, Pakistan and Yemen due to extremist activities there, and Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria because they are listed as “state sponsors of terrorism” by the United States, NBC reported. Go to MSNBC.