New Details on Mullahs' Role in Pan Am 103 Explosion, Iran Zamin News Agency, July 10 

The Iranian Resistance in a statement reported: "According to information received from Iran, the explosives used to blow up the Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, were transferred from Frankfurt Airport by members of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry who acted under the guise of Iran Air employees."

The statement disclosing the identities of mullahs' intelligence agents said: "In December 1988, when the Pan Am jet blew up, killing hundreds of innocent people, Hossein Marvastizadeh, an Iranian Intelligence Ministry agent, was in charge of passing the explosives through Frankfurt Airport's transit area. Formally, he was the head of Iran Air's Protection in Frankfurt… Marvastizadeh presently is in charge of Yazd Airport in central Iran."

Immediately after the Lockerbie incident, the Iranian Resistance had announced that this anti-human crime had been committed by the Khomeini regime terrorists.

Salman Rushdie Urges Europe to Stand Up to Iran, Reuter, July 10 

PARIS - British author Salman Rushdie, under an Iranian death sentence for alleged blasphemy, urged Europeans on Thursday to stand up to Iran and defend their traditional values such as freedom of speech.

"What more does Iran have to do for Europe to decide it has had enough and react?" Rushdie told the French National Assembly's foreign affairs commission in a closely guarded hearing open to the public.

The Indian-born author… told the commission Tehran views murder as part of the "normal political process" and operates "a terrorist network ready to execute orders handed down from on high."

The commission, chaired by former culture minister Jack Lang, invited Rushdie amid signs of deteriorating relations between Iran and Europe following a court ruling in Germany this year that Iranian leaders ordered political killings in Berlin in 1992….

Rushdie praised Washington's hard line against Tehran and applauded the new British Labour government's approach.

"Words are no longer enough," said Lang. "If Britain, France and Germany are determined, we'll see progress on liberties. Realpolitik is no longer the most realistic strategy. Firmness in defending principles is the way to impress governments which do not respect weak countries."…

The Man Behind the Saudi Bombing, The Washington Times, July 10

[Excerpts from an article by Jamie Dettmer, the senior editor of Insight] 

He has denied any involvement in terrorism before, but once again a former Iranian ambassador to the Vatican and now a leading cleric in Tehran is prompting considerable western intelligence interest and is even being mentioned by Pentagon sources in connection with the deadly attack last summer on the Khobar Towers in the Saudi Arabian city of Dhahran.

Two years ago Seyed Hadi Khosrowshahi was accused by a British newspaper of being involved in organizing Iranian terrorists for attacks against targets in Europe… Pentagon sources have told me that Mr. Hadi, who was close to the late Ayatollah Khomeini… is at the center of a web linking Iran with Saudi dissidents believed to have carried out the Dhahran truck blast that killed 19 U.S. airmen and injured scores of others.

… Prior to the Dhahran bombing the CIA had detected Iranian involvement in establishing a new terrorist camp in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley for the training of Saudi dissidents. In recent weeks American intelligence suspicion has hardened into certainty…

Mr. Hadi is a shadowy but powerful figure in the Iranian regime. Trained as a Muslim cleric in the holy city of Qom, he was a trusted supporter of Khomeini even before the Iranian revolution. In December 1979, Khomeini on the advice of his son appointed Mr. Hadi his personal representative at the Revolutionary Guard-dominated Ministry of Guidance… In the mid 80s he served as ambassador to the Vatican but was frequently back in Tehran and influential in the regime's behind-the-scene foreign policy debates. His position was always hard-line. IN 1990 he was elected to the powerful Assembly of Experts, a body responsible for ensuring the constitution is being observed. Pentagon sources say Mr. Hadi reports directly to Iran's supreme religious leader, the 60-year-old Sayed Ali Khamenei, and works closely with Ali Fallahiyan, the minister of intelligence and security.

As the pieces of the Dhahran puzzle come together, a debate is still raging in Washington about what punishment should be meted out to Iran…

… The surprise May election of Mohammad Khatami as Iran's new president hasn't led to any cutting back on Iranian covert activity in the Gulf….

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