NYT journo David Rohde escaped from a Haqqani network compound in North Waziristan this weekend after being taken hostage in Afghanistan’s Logar Province last November on his way to interview a Taleban commander. The commander set up Rohde, his driver and fixer in a ruse by granting him a faux interview request meant to entrap him. I have an uncredited quote on the Daily Beast about it here. Another colleague has a story about Rohde’s captivity and a semi-secret video that aired on Al Jazeera here which was later kept quiet.
As we all know it looks like Khamenei chose not to follow my advice for his Friday sermon last week. He may need to simply drop the velayat-e-faqih act and take the quietest stance of fellow Iranian and Grand Ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani in neighboring Iraq.