Back to Brief on Iran
According to statements by the Mojahedin Command Headquarters inside Iran, At about 9:00 p.m. (local time) on Thursday, July 1, Mojahedin military units launched two heavy mortar attacks: one on the headquarters of the clerical regime's Revolutionary Guards and Guards Corps Intelligence in southwest Iran's Khuzistan Province and the other on the Intelligence Ministry's main headquarters in western Iran.
The Guards Corps headquarters in Ahwaz was pounded with mortars while all the regime's suppressive forces in Khuzistan Province were on full alert since dawn on June 19, and the city of Ahwaz was under the most intense military and police control.
The attack on the heavily-fortified intelligence center in the west Iranian city of Kermanshah, which was also the gathering place for the clerical regime's terrorists sent abroad, led to a large number of casualties among the commanders and agents of Intelligence Ministry. News of attacks, on the Intelligence Ministry center in Kermanshah and the Guards headquarters in Ahwaz, "rapidly spread, arousing a wave of joy and delight among the suppressed people" of the two regions, the statements said.
"The Intelligence General Directorate in Kermanshah played a major role in training and dispatch of terrorist teams into Iraq to carry out terrorist operations against the Mojahedin. Many of the car bombs used in terrorist operations against the Mojahedin in Iraq and many of the terrorist operations were prepared here, in coordination with the clerical regime's embassy in Baghdad, and Iraqi agents of the mullahs' regime were also deployed," a statement said.
In a Mojahedin statement on June 9
on the car bomb attack which destroyed a Mojahedin civilian bus on a highway
north of Baghdad, Iranian Resistance Leader Massoud Rajavi had reiterated
his movement's legitimate right to self-defense and right of response to
Iran's ruling religious, terrorist dictatorship.
Members of Congress Call for Support for The Iranian Resistance, The Washington Times, July 1
More than 100 members of Congress are calling on Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright to support the Iranian "democratic opposition" and stop trying to find centrists in the "brutal regime."...
The letter criticizes Mrs. Albright
for sending "mixed messages" by labeling the Iranian resistance as terrorists
while condemning the Iranian regime for "continuing violations" of human
rights. The United States introduced a U.N. resolution in April that cited
the "high number of executions" under ...Mohammed Khatami, whom the State
Department has considered a "moderate."...
Members of Congress Criticize U.S. Iran Policy, Reuter, July 1
WASHINGTON - More than 130 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, about a third of the total, have asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to explore the possibility of working with the Iranian opposition in exile.
The letter, released by the sponsors on Thursday, said the current U.S. policy, based on seeking dialogue with the Tehran government, was sending mixed signals.
"We therefore encourage the State Department to look toward the possibilities that exist with the democratic opposition, rather than sending mixed signals -- particularly with regard to the status of the opposition -- toward a brutal regime that only continues to engage in rogue behavior," it said.
The main opposition is the Mujahedin Khalq, which the State Department put on its list of 30 international "terrorist" organizations in 1997.
The Mujahedin, with substantial support from members of Congress, have been fighting the designation. Last week a U.S. federal appeals court refused to set aside the listing but also said the evidence against the group was mere hearsay.
In practice the listing has little effect. Members of the Mujahedin have offices a short walk from the White House.
The signatories of the letter, led by Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, recalled that 220 members of Congress opposed the designation last year and cited recent condemnations of Iran for human rights abuses.
"We believe that now is not the time to associate ourselves with the Iranian people's murderers, but rather more closely with the people themselves," the letter said.
Analysts say the Clinton administration remains hopeful that liberals associated with Mohammed Khatami will come out on top in their long power struggle with hardliners around Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Mujahedin and their U.S. supporters deny there is any difference between the policies of the two factions.
"Their infighting is about power, not moderates versus radicals. And their infighting is worsening with every passing day," Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.