News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Iran has placed a bounty on the heads of Israel's security establishment via its state-supported Islamist student union.

Students offered rewards totalling one million dollars for the "execution" of Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Mossad  Director Meir Dagan and IDF Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin, the state-run Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) reported Monday.

The group has requested that Iranians wishing to increase the bounties donate their kidneys. The bounty for Barak is currently 400,000 dollars, while the murderers of Dagan or Yadlin will receive 300,000 each. "These sums will be given to any person or their families who could punish these individuals in any part of the world," the Islamist group announced.

Banners announcing the bounties feature the quote by Islamic Revolution Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that "Israel must be wiped off the map." The line has become a rallying cry for Iran's President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad in his bid for nuclear capabilities.

Iran insists its position is in no way anti-Semitic but anti-Zionist, pointing to the continued existence in its country of the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel.