TEHRAN - Clashes between rival factions disrupted a prayer gathering in a central city, which has been a site of recent political unrest, newspapers said on Saturday.

The daily Salam said hard-line opponents of Isfahan's Friday prayer leader, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, clashed with his supporters on Friday.

The newspaper said protesters demanded the resignation of Taheri, a key supporter of President Mohammad Khatami, and also called for the resignation of two key ministers.

The clashes are part of a sharpening conflict between those backing Khatami and conservatives fearing the abandonment of Islamic principles.

The Isfahan protests followed a massive rally in the holy city of Qom earlier in which 20,000 Shi'ite seminary students and teachers marched to protest the festive Khatami rally as "a Western cultural onslaught on Islamic values and beliefs."

A senior conservative cleric, in a rare personal attack on Khatami, said in published remarks on Saturday that the pro-Khatami crowd's clapping and whistling was un-Islamic. "The president must publicly admit that he has committed an error, or else I fear (he will get) a slap in the face by God and by the people," said Ayatollah Abolqassem Khazali.

Isfahan and the nearby town of Najafabad, the hometown of a senior dissident cleric, have been a hotbed of protest since the cleric, Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, was put under house arrest after he questioned the authority of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a speech in November.

[According to a report by Iran Zamin News Agency, many people were wounded in Isfahan’s Friday clashes, which went on for more than an hour. The assailants were armed with knives, knuckle-dusters, etc. They chanted slogans against Montazeri and the Mojahedin.

[Meanwhile, in the Friday prayers ceremony in Tehran, Mullah Ahmad Jannati, a close confidant of Khamenei, spoke of the aggravating power struggle at the top of the regime and openly expressed alarm at the prospects of the regime's overthrow. Jannati warned that should the current situation continue, "we will lose whatever we have... We have to think hard as to how we can preserve the security of Islam and the present unity," Jannati said.]

Parliament Speaker Re-Elected, Associated Press, May 31

TEHRAN - A leading hard-line opponent of Iran's president was re-elected Sunday as the head of the country's powerful Parliament.

Of the 258 deputies present in the 270-seat Majlis, or parliament, 165 voted to reinstate Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri as speaker of the legislature for his third one-year term, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

A power struggle between rival factions inside Iran's Islamic government intensified after Nateq-Nouri was defeated by Khatami in last year's presidential election.

The rivalry has led to large public demonstrations in Tehran and other cities in recent weeks that have sometimes turned violent.

Argentine Probe Frays Iran Ties, Los Angeles Times, May 30

BUENOS AIRES--A war of words between Iran and Argentina has brought the two nations to the brink of a rupture in diplomatic relations...

Argentine investigators are working toward the conclusion that the Iranian government ordered and directed the attack by a terrorist squad aided by corrupt Argentine police commanders, according to sources close to the case.

[Iran’s Charge d'Affaires] Sadatifar, interviewed last week, accused Argentina of trying to make Iran a scapegoat.

"There is a great deal of international pressure by the CIA and the Mossad--that is, by the governments of Israel and America," he said... But it is the testimony of former Iranian officials that has propelled Argentina's double-barreled diplomatic and judicial offensive.

"Argentina avoided taking measures without evidence," said Jorge Raventos, a Foreign Ministry spokesman. "But everything indicates that an interruption in relations is likely, depending on the investigation and the judge's actions..."

Investigating Magistrate Juan Jose Galeano traveled to Germany recently to question the former No. 3 official of Iran's intelligence service. The defector was the star witness against Iranian operatives convicted of killing dissidents in a Berlin restaurant six years ago.

He testified that Iran's top leaders decided in 1992 to attack the Jewish center here. The alleged motive: retaliation for Argentina's termination of an agreement that supplied nuclear material and advisors to Iran, part of an Argentine policy shift.

The defector testified that the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires has served as the intelligence headquarters for South America, according to Javier Astigarraga, a lawyer for the victims of the bombing...

The defector singled out the embassy's former cultural attaché, Mohsen Rabbani, as a terrorist field commander who prepared a support network for the attack. The testimony confirmed suspicions that led Argentina to bar Rabbani from the country months ago, authorities said...
 

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