Jan 26 - An Iranian F-14 military jet crashed off the Persian Gulf coast today, Reuters has cited Iran's Fars news agency as saying. Local authorities said the plane had been in the air for three minutes when it crashed near the town of Bushihr at 4:30 local time.

The governor of the Southern province of Bushir later in the day announced that the wreckage of the jet has been found in the Gulf.

There was no exact report on the fate of the two members of the crew. While the Governor of Bushihr, Jafar Pour-Kabgani says that the pilot and copilot were killed in the incident, Fars news agency claims the pilot could survive the crash.

The F-14 was retired from the active U.S. Navy fleet in September 2006.

The F-14 was only in service with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, having been exported to Iran in 1976 when the US had amicable diplomatic relations with the then government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Sources estimate the number of F-14A still in IrRAF service by 44./-

Jan 28 - The opposition Syrian National Council on Saturday accused Iran of "participation" in the bloody crackdown on protests in Syria and called on Tehran to stop supporting the Damascus regime.

"The Council condemns the participation of the Iranian regime in killing Syrians who are demanding freedom and urges it to stop taking part in quelling the Syrian revolution, in order to protect the relations between the two people," Samir Neshar, a member of the SNC's executive committee, said at a news conference in Istanbul.

The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed Friday to have captured five Iranian military officers in the restive city of Homs and urged Tehran to "immediately" withdraw any additional troops it may have in Syria.

In a statement, the FSA said the Iranians captured "were working under the orders of the intelligence services of the Syrian air force" and had no valid papers to reside or work in Syria./-

Jan 28 - Iran's Guardian Council has expressed its readiness to endorse a proposed bill submitted by the country's parliament to cut off the Iranian oil exports to Europe in response to the EU's recent sanction on Tehran, Press TV reports.

"We cannot express our view before seeing the parliament's legislation on a possible oil ban [on Europe], however; the Guardian Council will ratify any legislation that could help protect Iran's national interests," spokesman for Iran's Guardian Council Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei told Press TV on Saturday.

The move comes after EU foreign ministers reached an agreement in Brussels on January 23 to impose sanctions on oil imports from Iran as of July 1. The sanctions involve an immediate ban on all new oil contracts with the Islamic Republic and freezing the assets of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) within the EU.

If passed, the legislation will deny the six-month phase that the bloc has considered to find alternative sources to compensate for Iran's crude. The EU accounted for 18 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the first half of 2011, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), making it Iran's second biggest customer after China.

Experts believe in case Iran stops selling oil to European countries it has to pay fines for long term and still running contracts with European refineries./-