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WASHINGTON - The Iranian opposition in exile said on Tuesday that a special death squad drawn from members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Intelligence Ministry was behind the recent killing of Iranian dissidents.
The National Council of Resistance, which is closely linked with the Mujahideen Khalq, said the aim was "to create an atmosphere or terror and intimidation" after outbreaks of protest against the government.
"A special terrorist group was set up, consisting of members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and a number of agents from the Intelligence Ministry," a statement said.
The statement identified three commanders of the special squad: Brigadier-General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, described as counter-intelligence chief in the State Security Force, newspaper publisher Hossein Shariatmadari and Mohammad Lajevardi, son of former prison director Assadollah Lajevardi.
Shariatmadari, who runs the hardline Tehran daily Kayhan, is a veteran Guards Corps member, it said. Assadollah Lajevardi ran the notorious Evin prison after the 1979 revolution.
At least three dissident writers and two opposition activists have been killed in Iran in about one month.
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the United States and other foreign enemies of involvement in the murders in an effort to discredit the Islamic republic.
The NCR dismissed this. "There is not one of the regime's senior officials who does not know who the perpetrators and masterminds of these murders are. This death squad is their own creation."
It said the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi, had taken part in a series of meetings where decisions were taken to carry out the killings.
In April, Iranian newspapers quoted Safavi as saying: "We seek to tear out the roots of counter-revolution wherever they may be. We should cut the neck of some of them. We will cut the tongues of others."
NCR Accuses Mullahs' Regime of Assassinations, Dow Jones, December 15
WASHINGTON - The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran on Tuesday accused the Iranian government of complicity in the recent assassination of seven dissidents in Iran and has called for a stronger response from the U.S.
Iran's President Mohammad Khatami and its chief religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "both know very well that the source of the killings is within the regime," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, a Washington-based member of the Council's foreign relations committee.
The Council claims recent economic and political pressures and internal power struggles have led the Iranian regime to launch a new terror campaign aimed at resistance activists, dissidents and writers.
In a statement issued earlier Tuesday, Soona Samsami, the Council's U.S. representative called on the U.S. and other United Nations members to condemn the Iranian regime for the seven murders.
Regime prepares Ground to Attack Resistance Bases, Associated Press, December 15
CAIRO - An Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization, Tuesday blamed Iran's judiciary and Intelligence Ministry for the deaths of five government critics in the past month. Two other dissidents remain missing.
Iran's judiciary, controlled by hard-liners, blamed unnamed foreigners for the killings and a group of legislators have pointed the finger at the Mujahedeen.
But the Mujahedeen, in a statement said the accusations were an excuse by the regime to carry out military strikes against their bases in Iraq.
"By churning out such lies and attributing
these heinous murders to the Mujahedeen," Iran's Intelligence Ministry
and the judiciary "seek to conceal the true identity of the perpetrators
and masterminds of these crimes who are none other than the leaders and
agents of the regime," the statement said.
Murdered Writer Buried, Reuters, December 15
TEHRAN - About 2,000 Iranian writers and their secularist supporters gathered on Tuesday to bury slain poet Mohammad Mokhtari, amid word of several arrests in a string of mystery murders that has rattled the Islamic republic.
But many seemed sceptical that the announcement of several arrests late on Monday would end the killings that have claimed at least three dissident writers and two opposition activists.
"They have started with the (secularist) dissidents who do not pose any threat to the system and are not a possible alternative in political terms," said one writer.
"But they will move on to the Islamic intellectuals who have been seriously criticizing the legitimacy of the system," said the writer, who asked not to be identified.