Back to Brief on Iran
The Mojahedin Command HQ in Iran announced today that within the past week, several armed clashes have taken place between the Mojahedin and the combined forces of the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence in different cities.
The statement issued by the Mojahedin Command HQ in Iran pointed out that the clerical regime's security and intelligence agencies have resorted to a wide array of actions to counter the nationwide campaign being undertaken by supporters of the Mojahedin and the Resistance to mark the anniversary of June 20, the day the Resistance began in 1981 and the day the Iranian Resistance has designated as the Day of Martyrs and Political Prisoners.
In Khorram-Abad (capital of the western province of Lorestan) the harsh and violent treatment of residents by Revolutionary Guards at checkpoints and during body searches have sparked off antigovernment protests, especially by young people. There have been several shoot-outs between the two sides. In Ilam (in the south-west province of Ilam), security agents have been conducting a house-to-house search in pursuit of Mojahedin supporters and young protesters. Women supporters of the Mojahedin have been specially targeted.
In clashes in the cities of Dezful,
Ahwaz and Abadan in the oil-rich south-west province of Khuzistan, a number
of Revolutionary Guards and Intelligence Ministry agents have been killed
or wounded.
Missile Message Behind The Façade, The Washington Times, June 17
Excerpts from a commentary by Arnold Beichman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute.
The test of a country's military power is not its inventory but its ability to project that power against an enemy, real or fancied.
Iran has just demonstrated with its missile technology that it can project its power beyond its own borders....
If I were Madeline Albright I'd be thinking of revising U.S. policy toward Iran, a policy based on the absurd belief that the recently elected president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, is a Middle East Gorbachev capable, let alone aspiring to oust the entrenched theocracy. There have been something like 24 terrorist attacks since the "moderate" Khatami took office, according to Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York.
On June 11, Iran fired four long-range missiles, probably Scud-B's, from a missile site in the city of Kermanshah, 105 miles from the Iraqi border, against a base camp of Iranian guerilla exiles 50 miles inside Iraq... Keep in mind, Iran has longer-range missiles in its large missile stockpile...
Iraq... tolerates Iranian guerrilla exiles who go by the name Mujahedin Khalq. Hoping to win the mullahs' good will, the State Department put the Mujahedin Khalq on its list of terrorist organizations. The State Department ignored Tehran's record of primitive power projection - assassination of its opponents residing abroad and by putting out a contract on Salman Rushdie. The mullah regime is almost certainly responsible for terror against Israeli targets in Buenos Aires....
There were no causalities among the Mujahedin in last week's attack... That doesn't say much for the missile accuracy but give them time and accuracy will improve. As for the State Department reaction: "We have seen the report and we have no reaction."
The Iranian mullahs are on a role. Two days - June 9 - before the missile firing, Iran projected its power right in the heart of Baghdad. A bus carrying Mujahedin Khalq guerilla was blown up by a car bomb... Six guerrillas were killed and 36 were wounded, among them Iraqi bystanders. The bomb left a crater 6 feet deep by 10 feet in circumference. State Department reaction: "We have seen the report and we have no comment." A few days earlier two bomb exploded near the guerrilla Baghdad headquarters...
The scud firings confirms the bankruptcy of the Clinton-Albright policy toward Iran. Then Israeli prime minister, Shimon Peres, called upon European Union countries to "stop flirting with the Iranians." The same warning could be extended to the United States....
Iran, with the help of Communist China and North Korea, has developed its own missile production industry. In October 1991, Iran purchased from North Korea 20 Scud B and Scud C's with a range of 313 miles. The following month, Iran purchased 150 more scud missiles from North Korea.
Iran has also purchased from China the 600-mile-range M-11 missile...
Gen. Anthony Zinni, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, last May warned against warming up to Iran saying Tehran had yet to show change on the issues of most concern to the United States - weapons of mass destruction, support for terrorism and settling disputes in the Gulf. Iran has just shown how right Gen. Zinni is.