Back to Brief on Iran
In order to overshadow its internal crises, the mullahs' regime intends to use the religious occasion of Ashura (marking the martyrdom of the third Shiite Imam) on Thursday, May 7, to launch terrorist and military attacks on Mojahedin bases in Iraqi territory, reports from Iran say.
In recent days, the ruling dictatorship has used the publication of the US State Department's annual report on terrorism as an excuse to embark on an extensive political campaign to pave the way for such attacks.
On three successive days (Saturday through Monday) the Foreign Ministry issued three statements announcing that "the suppression of terrorist elements who attack the people living in the border region and other Iranian nationals through the Iran-Iraq border is the legitimate right of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
In another explicit admission, the
state-run radio announced yesterday evening: "All the acts of the Islamic
Republic of Iran in 1997 against the Monafeqin [Mojahedin], which have
been mentioned in the US State Department's annual report, were carried
out solely to prevent violent and terrorist moves by the Monafeqin [Mojahedin]."
Youth's Death Spurs Street Clash With Police, Reuter, May 5
TEHRAN - The death of a young Iranian street vendor as he tried to escape authorities sparked clashes between an angry crowd and Tehran police, a newspaper said on Tuesday. The daily Salam said a crowd of 5,000 gathered after 16-year-old vegetable vendor Eliyas Nowrouzi was killed on Monday in an accident while fleeing from municipal authorities in the back of a pick-up truck.
Tension rose after the youth's bloodied body remained on the street for several hours as the police, the coroner's office and the city's emergency services squabbled over who should remove the body, the newspaper said.
The crowd built barricades of burning tires and threw stones at police forces, demanding that Tehran's mayor should visit the accident scene in a teeming southwestern district, it added.
A police officer managed to briefly calm down the crowd, before clashes broke out again and a special forces unit moved in to remove the body. Police dispersed the chanting crowd which formed a procession behind the body, Salam added.
Iranian papers have recently reported increasing dissatisfaction among Tehran residents over rising prices and strikes and protests by workers across the country, partly due to non-payment of wages.
[According to Iran Zamin News Agency,
the angry crowd chanted: "Death to Khamenei, death to Khatami and death
to Rafsanjani." They also shouted "Down with the mullahs' regime." In a
statement, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the NCR, expressed his condolences
to the family of Elias Norouzi, and praised this heroic uprising.]
Argentine Prosecutor Says Mullahs' Envoy Linked to Bomb, Reuter, May 4
BUENOS AIRES - An Argentine public prosecutor said on Monday that Iran's former cultural attaché to Buenos Aires had been linked to a 1994 anti-Jewish bombing that killed 86 people.
"We were always suspicious of the Iranian cultural attaché," Prosecutor Eamon Mullen told local radio.
Mullen was speaking after Juan Galeano, the Argentine judge investigating the bombing, interrogated an unidentified witness in Germany about the case. Mullen accompanied Galeano to Germany.
In March, Argentina's government blocked the return to Buenos Aires of the Iranian embassy's cultural
attaché, Mohsen Rabbani, because of suspicions surrounding the Jewish community center bombing.
Investigators probing the bombing blame Iranian-backed Muslim extremists for the attack. Those suspicions are shared by Israel and U.S. intelligence.
Mullen said the witness in Germany told him and Galeano that Rabbani was responsible for "intelligence groundwork" in the bombing.
Galeano has said Rabbani sought details
of prices of vehicles identical to the van used in the bombing. Immediately
after the bombing, Galeano ordered the arrest of four Iranian diplomats,
but the international arrest warrants were turned down.
Aids Victims Sue Iran's Blood Transfusion Organization, Agence France Presse, May 4
TEHRAN - A number of Iranians infected with the AIDS virus through blood transfusion and their relatives have filed a suit against Iran's Blood Transfusion Organization (IBTO), a newspaper reported Monday.
They all blamed the IBTO and the health ministry for their plight and complained that no insurance company or government agency was prepared to pay for their treatment.