Back to Brief on Iran
USA Today, Sept. 29 - President Clinton has asked… Mohammed Khatami to cooperate in the investigation of the bombing in 1996 of a U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia, former and current U.S. officials say…
‘‘The FBI has concluded that the bombing was supported and possibly ordered by the Iranian intelligence service’’ under Khatami’s predecessor, Hashemi Rafsanjani, said [Vince] Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism for the CIA…
Some U.S. officials said Iran had responded negatively to the letter and… the Iranians also asked the United States to send to them for prosecution the captain of the USS Vincennes, which accidentally shot down an Iran Air passenger plane over the Persian Gulf in 1988...
CBS News (Internet Edition) by Tom Fenton, Sept. 29 - … One Clinton administration official described the letter as part of a wider effort to suggest ways President Khatami could improve relations with Washington. But the Iranian president was more likely to have seen it as a trap.
Khatami… is under heavy pressure from the radical clerics who still call the shots in Tehran. A move by the Iranian president to aid the FBI in an investigation that might implicate his own country could turn out to be political suicide.
Administration officials presumably know this. The question is why they bothered to ask in the first place.
Al-Watan, Sept. 10 - … [In the letter] after Clinton expresses his respect for Khatami… he stated that his government has so far resisted all pressures brought on it by groups hostile to Iran, in Congress and other power centers [in the US] who are bent on forcing the US administration towards a clash with Iran in recent years.
In his letter, Clinton also mentions that some people including, Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, and the President's National Security advisor Sandy Berger know about this letter, making it necessary to keep the letter secret in order to avoid any unnecessary outcries either in Congress and American media, or by hardliner rightists in Iran.
The Washington Post, Sept. 29 - … The request from Clinton was based in part on intelligence reports linking the bombing to three Saudi men who have taken refuge in Iran, a senior official said…
After more than a year of U.S. diplomatic
protests the Saudis relented last spring and allowed U.S. investigators
to witness interrogations of people held in relation to the Khobar bombings.
These sessions produced further indications of an Iranian role in the terrorist
attack but no concrete evidence.
Khatami Details Plans for 4 New Missiles, The Washington Times, September 29
TEHRAN - Seeking to develop its arms industry to self-sufficiency, yesterday inaugurated 25 defense projects, including four new missiles, state television said.
It said the projects included two laser-guided heavy anti-armor missiles named "Thunder" and "Tosan," a medium-weight anti-armor missile called "Super-Dragon" and an anti-aircraft missile, "Misaq."
"A strong Iran is the best guarantor of peace and security in the region," President Mohammad Khatami, who inaugurated the projects, was cited by television as saying.
[The Washington Times reported last week that one of Iran's two medium-range ballistic missiles, the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 would have a 3,400-mile range.
[A report by the Air Force's National
Air Intelligence Center said the Shahab-5 also was in development and would
have a longer range than the Shahab-4.]
Three Portuguese Seized in Iran, Agence France Presse, September 28
TEHRAN - Three Portuguese nationals were being held hostage by "drug-traffickers" Tuesday as the third kidnapping of Westerners in just four months dealt a fresh blow to Iran’s fledgling tourism industry.
The three men were kidnapped on Monday near the city of Zahedan close to the Pakistani border, the Portuguese embassy said.
The abduction was the third in the
same region of Iran in four months and is yet another embarrassment for
Iranian authorities who have been trying to boost Iran’s tourism industry
and image.
Khatami Warns Student Of "Foreign-Inspired Enemies", Reuters, September 29
TEHRAN - Mohammad Khatami lashed out on Wednesday against rival faction.
Khatami warned students who started school this week to be wary of a "foreign-inspired current who seeks to put universities against religious faith."
"I beseech the dear students to be alert and confront the hands which want to create tension. Universities should be a vanguard in defending sacred values," he said.
He was referring to a satirical play in a campus journal, which outraged the clerical establishment.