Mousavi forms political-legal group to defend "Iranians' rights," says has evidence for election rigging

Guardian Council confirms Ahmadinejad's victory, opposition insists election results must be cancelled

EU considers pulling ambassadors from Iran

U.S. forces' withdrawal from Iraqi cities welcomed

Oabam to Iraqis: Tough days still ahead

Iran's reform leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi urged his supporters to continue to fight for "the rights of the people" in his first rallying cry since the regime validated the results of the country's disputed presidential election.

Mousavi reasserted his claim that the June 12 election was illegitimate, and demanded that Iran's hardline government release all political prisoners and institute electoral reforms and press freedom.

His latest defiance came as the Basij militia accused the opposition leader of undermining national security and asked a prosecutor to investigate his role in violent protests.

The move came amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the West.

A senior Iranian military official suggested that nuclear negotiations between Tehran and the West would be further stalled in the wake of the protests, which the regime has accused European powers of masterminding.

Iran has particularly targeted Britain as an instigator of the protests, and arrested nine local employees of Britain's embassy in Tehran. Five were released.

"It's not yet too late," said Mousavi, who has slipped from public view in recent days. "It's our historic responsibility to continue our complaint and make efforts not to give up the rights of the people."

Writing on his website, Mousavi also condemned alleged attacks by security forces on university dormitories where "blood was spilled and the youth were beaten," and he called for a return to a more "honest" political environment in the Islamic Republic.

The semiofficial Fars news agency said the Basij - known as the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's street enforcers - sent the chief prosecutor a letter accusing Mousavi of taking part in nine offences against the state, including "disturbing the nation's security," which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.

Iran's regime says 17 protesters and eight Basiji were killed in two weeks of unrest that followed the election. Mousavi insists the vote was tainted by massive fraud and that he - not incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - is the rightful winner.

The powerful Guardian Council, Iran's top electoral oversight body, pronounced the election results valid earlier this week - paving the way for Ahmadinejad to be sworn in later this month for a second four-year term.

The European Union was considering Britain's request to pull the bloc's ambassadors from Iran, an extraordinary move that would send a powerful signal of EU unity in the wake of Tehran's post-election crackdown.

It is a delicate balancing act for the 27-member EU: Punishing the regime too harshly for the detention of British embassy staff in Tehran also risks spoiling chances to make headway on the critical issue of Iran's disputed nuclear program.

Some EU countries worry that pulling the bloc's ambassadors from Tehran would only serve to isolate the Iranian regime, cutting it off completely from outside influence.

Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, believes that "maintaining relations" with Iran is crucial, said Irena Busic, spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

The issue was expected to be given high priority in a two-day meeting of EU foreign policy directors starting in Stockholm. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Phil Gordon, was set to take part in the meeting.

U.S. officials say they remain open to talks with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, despite questions about the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election and his belligerent anti-American rhetoric.

"We will be discussing matters such as the situation in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Bjorn Lyrvall, political affairs director of Sweden's Foreign Ministry.

"President Obama has given high priority to this region and this is shared by the EU. And we will probably also discuss disarmament and the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons," Lyrvall said in a statement before the meeting.

Nuclear negotiations with Iran had stalled even before its crackdown on citizens demonstrating against what they say was a skewed election in favor of Ahmadinejad.

The detentions of local personnel at the British Embassy last week cranked up Iran's standoff with the West. Iranian state TV said Tehran released all but one of the employees.

Both Britain and the EU condemned the detentions as "harassment and intimidation."

Iran, which accuses Europe of supporting anti-government rallies, said the EU had disqualified itself from talks over Tehran's nuclear program because of its "interference" in the post-election unrest.

The EU "has totally lost the competence and qualifications needed for holding any kind of talks with Iran," Iran's chief of staff, Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

Political analysts said recalling ambassadors from Iran would send strong message of EU unity.

"I think the symbolic signal cannot be underestimated," said Shannon Kile, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "The EU hasn't been able to act in a unified way vis-à-vis Iran on anything."

The main concern, he said, was that the move could help push Iran further into isolation, to a point where it "won't be possible to have any outside influence on its behavior." The European Jewish Congress called on the EU to stand up to Iran's "bullying tactics."

"If the Iranians see how easily they can attack European institutions and get away with it, this will only embolden them for further outrages," congress president Moshe Kantor said in a statement.

The EU has so far refrained from sanctions against Iran.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said that Europe and others must take care not to become "an excuse for use of violence or use of repression inside Iran."

Six years after U.S.-led coalition forces invaded Iraq, Iraqi forces have assumed formal control of the capital, Baghdad, and other cities as part of a security agreement, reports say.

U.S. troops began withdrawing from the country's major cities and towns as the midnight deadline passed for troops to hand over security to Iraqi forces and withdraw to bases outside the cities.

The Status of Forces Agreement, which set the June 30 pullback deadline, calls for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraqi cities and all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2011. It also says U.S. commanders must hereafter seek permission from Iraqi authorities to conduct operations, but American troops retain a unilateral right to "legitimate self-defense".

The withdrawal, a milestone in the country's recovery of sovereignty, was feted late into the night by tens of thousands in Baghdad.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki described the June 30 deadline for the U.S. withdrawal as a "turning point" for the country as he declared the country's National Sovereignty Day and a public holiday.

The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities, after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security, a senior adviser to al-Maliki said. He said Iraq is "now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty".

All Iraqis are happy today because it's the first day that they're going to protect themselves, said a Baghdad civil defense spokesman, adding Iraq's enemies will attempt to disrupt security but their forces are ready to take them on.

The former defense ministry building in the capital, taken over in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, was handed back to the Iraqi government.

"This marks the end of the rule of the multinational force," said General Abboud Qambar, the head of Baghdad Operation Command.

Following several massive bombings that have killed more than 200 persons this month, all leave for security force personnel has been canceled. Iraqi security forces increased checkpoints and banned motorcycles, the favored transport of several recent bombers, from the streets of Baghdad.

"Our expectation is that maybe some criminals will try to continue their attacks," said Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf, the interior ministry's operations director and spokesman. "That is why orders came from the highest level of the prime minister that our forces should be 100 per cent on the ground until further notice."

Despite heightened security, a roadside bomb attack on a U.S. convoy in eastern Baghdad wounded six civilians a day earlier, police said. And in western Baghdad, a car bomb exploded in the parking area of a police academy in Al-Furat district, killing one police officer and wounding seven policemen.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced that an American soldier had died of injuries sustained in a combat in Baghdad while a bomb in Sadr City wounded three other soldiers.

Separately, the top U.S. commander in Mosul has warned Iraqi army generals that the time has not yet come for his forces to pull out.

"The most dangerous thing that can happen to you and me is that the insurgents separate us, to put a wedge between us," Colonel Gary Volesky said. The Iraqi army and government have asked that Volesky's troops remain in Mosul past the scheduled withdrawal date.

Only a small number of U.S. forces in training and advisory roles will remain in urban areas, with the bulk of American troops in Iraq, 131,000 according to Pentagon figures, quartered in bases outside the cities. The June 30 withdrawal is the prelude to a complete American pullout by the end of 2011.

The ongoing presence of U.S. troops in Iraq "shows that the (Iraqi) government and the occupation are not serious about the withdrawal," a key Shiite cleric in the country said.

Muqtada al-Sadr made the statement on his Web site a day after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraqi cities and towns in accordance with the security agreement between the United States and Iraq.

About 131,000 American troops remain in the country, on bases and in outposts outside of population centers.

"The withdrawal should include all the occupation forces: army, intelligence, militias, and security companies and others. Otherwise, the withdrawal will be uncompleted and useless," al-Sadr said.

"We want a withdrawal and stopping the interference with Iraqi political, social and economic affairs," the statement said.

Al-Sadr commands the loyalty of the Mehdi Army, one of the largest independent militias in the country. His agreement to a cease-fire with the government and its allies is considered a key factor in reducing the level of violence in the country.

But he seemed to suggest that Iraqis had the right to attack foreign forces in the country -- if not Iraqi security forces.

"If the occupation forces violate this claimed withdrawal, even with a government cover, then the people of Iraq will have all the right to express their opinion in a peaceful way, and the right to self-defense on condition of not harming the Iraqi people and the security forces," he said.

Under an agreement signed in the waning days of the Bush administration, all U.S. forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Most will be gone by August 2010 under the withdrawal plan laid out by President Barack Obama, Bush's successor.

The U.S. troops who remain are now tasked with supporting Iraqi troops and police, and must seek Iraqi permission to launch operations in the cities.

the top U.S. general in the country said that much of the country was safe. "There is not widespread violence in Iraq," Gen. Ray Odierno told reporters in a video conference from Baghdad.

"There's still gonna be bumps in the road. There's still gonna be violence here," he added.

Meanwhile, the death toll from a huge blast in northern Iraq rose to 35, local security officials said.

The car bombing took place in a busy commercial district in a predominantly Kurdish area of Kirkuk when the neighborhood was busy, security sources said.

About 17 shops and houses were destroyed and 95 people were wounded, a police official in the Iraqi city added.

Kirkuk is about 378 kilometers (235 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad.

President Barack Obama says that Iraqi security forces taking control of cities from the United States is an important step toward Iraq’s sovereignty and the end of the war.

He says Iraqis are rightly treating the day as a cause for celebration.

But Obama added - in his words - “Make no mistake. There will be difficult days ahead. “

Obama says there’s more work to be done, but U.S. has made important progress toward a stable, sovereign Iraq.

He says Iraq’s future is in the hands of its people, and that Iraqi leaders have hard choices. He pledged that the U.S. would continue to be a strong partner.