Back to Brief on Iran
CAIRO, Egypt - An Iranian opposition group said it fired mortars at security agencies Friday in a provincial Iranian city, causing "heavy casualties."
In a statement received in Cairo, the Mujahedeen Khalq said its guerrillas shelled the headquarters of the Intelligence Ministry and the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards in the city of Dezful, in the southwest province of Khuzestan.
The group said it was retaliating for the "arrest, torture and execution" of dissidents by the agencies in Dezful. It claimed responsibility for similar attacks Thursday on security agency offices in the western cities Kermanshahm and Ahvaz.
The dissidents said Thursday's attack, using 82 mm mortars, caused heavy casualties and destroyed the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards in Ahvaz.
The Mujahedeen Khalq has more than
30,000 male and female guerrillas in 17 camps in Iraq near the Iranian
border. The group often targets Iranian troops and government buildings.
Rebels Say Launch Mortar Attacks in Iran, Reuter, July 2
DUBAI - Iraq-based Iranian rebels said on Friday they had launched mortar attacks against military and security police sites in western Iran, inflicting heavy casualties and damage.
The Mujahideen Khalq armed opposition group, in statements faxed to Reuters in Dubai, said its forces inside Iran attacked the Revolutionary Guards' headquarters in Ahvaz, and militia and intelligence ministry centers in Kermanshah. IRNA said the blast in Ahvaz, capital of an oil-rich province bordering Iraq, smashed windows in several buildings. "The blast claimed no lives," it quoted a hospital official as saying. The Mujahideen, Iran's main exiled opposition group, has in the past year intensified its attacks. More than 130 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, about a third of the total, asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a letter released on Thursday to explore the possibility of working with the Mujahideen.
Iraq and the Mujahideen have blamed
Iran for several recent attacks on the group's forces inside Iraq. Tehran
declined to comment on the charges.
Intelligence Department and GC Command HQ Pounded, Iran Zamin News Agency, July 2
On Friday, July 2, the Mojahedin's military units simultaneously pounded with 82-mm mortars two main centers of repression and export of terrorism in the strategically-located city of Dezful in Khuzistan province in a major military operation.
With the Mojahedin military units' attack on the headquarters of the Intelligence Department and the Revolutionary Guards in Dezful, the number of key centers of terrorism, and repression which have been attacked by mortars since last night in the cities of Ahwaz, Kermanshah and Dezful reaches six.
The Mojahedin's military units pounded the heavily-protected buildings of these two organs located on 15 Khordad Ave. in Dezful and inflicted heavy casualties on the Guards and the regime's suppressive forces.
The operation against the headquarters of the Intelligence Department and the Guards Corps in Dezful was preceded by smaller operations and a chain of clashes between Mojahedin's military units and agents of the Guards Corps and Intelligence Ministry in the early hours this morning which continued hours after the conclusion of the main operation.
Dozens of Guards and Intelligence agents were killed or wounded.
Three members of the Mojahedin military units, Mohammad Abravan, Siavosh
Kaykavoussi and Rassoul Ghanavati, were slain in these clashes.
Iranian Gas, The Washington Times, July 2
The U.S. Intelligence community recently completed an interagency assessment of Iran's growing chemical weapons capabilities. The assessment covers all aspects of the Iranian poison gas program, including production centers, stockpiles and delivery systems. It also addresses foreign suppliers that have included Chinese government-run companies that provided precursor chemicals.
The problem of Iran's chemical arms programs, which include large stockpiles of nerve, blood and blister agents, prompted the creation of a special White House National Security Council task force that was to monitor developments.
The major worry: Iran's new Shahab-3 medium-range missile, which was test-fired last year, will be outfitted with poison gas warheads. The missile is the first of two-medium range missiles that were built with Chinese and Russian government assistance. The Shahab-3 threatens U.S. troops and U.S. friends in the region. The longer-range missile, the Shahab-4, will be able to put warheads as far away as Central Europe.