Back to Brief on Iran
BAGHDAD - The armed Iranian opposition group Mujahideen Khalq said on Monday that Iranian government agents attacked one of its bases in Iraq.
"Terrorists" fired rockets at their Camp Faezeh near the Iraqi city of Kut about 100 miles south east of Baghdad late on Sunday, the group said in a statement.
"The camp's security guards reacted quickly, forcing the terrorists to flee and leave behind their equipment," it said. "None of the group's members was hurt."
It said Mujahideen Khalq reserved the right to respond and asked the United Nations Secretary-General Koffi Anan and the Security Council to condemn the Iranian government.
Mujahideen bases have been the target
of air and rocket attacks by Iran. Their office in Baghdad, ringed by a
concrete wall, has survived several mortar and bomb attacks. The attack
was the 83rd reported since 1993.
Woman Medical Students Protest Poor Education, Reuters, January 13
TEHRAN - Students at an all-women medical school in Iran have gone on strike to protest against poor education which they blame on segregation of the sexes, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The daily Aftab-e Emrouz said the students from Fatemieh medical school in the city of Qom, a stronghold of the Shi'ite Moslem clergy, had boycotted classes for two weeks.
Fatemieh has been serving as a pilot program since the parliament passed a law in 1998 to segregate health services.
The daily said the school and its hospital
had fired all male employees in accordance with the law which aims to limit
contacts between the sexes.
Newspapers Summoned Over Interview, Reuters, January 16
TEHRAN - Iran's Press Court on Sunday summoned representatives of leading newspapers after they published remarks of dissident cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri, witnesses said.
The newspapers published excerpts on Saturday of a transcript, provided by Montazeri's office, of a joint interview the he gave earlier to Reuters and a British newspaper, The Guardian.
Editors of the dailies Fath,
Asr-e Azadegan and Sobh-e Emrouz appeared at the Press Court
for a closed-door interrogation, the witnesses said. The editor of Azad
newspaper, who was not present, was also charged, they said.
CIA Tells Clinton an Iranian A-Bomb Can't Be Ruled Out, The New York Times, January 17
NEW YORK - In a sharp departure from its previous assessment of Iran's nuclear capacity, the Central Intelligence Agency has told senior Clinton administration officials that Iran might now be able to make a nuclear weapon, according to several United States officials.
George Tenet, director of central intelligence, began briefings in December about the agency's new assessment, shortly after the document was completed, the officials said. The new evaluation has touched off a sharp debate about Iran's nuclear capacity, and the CIA's ability to monitor it….
Senior Clinton administration officials have tried to play down the significance of the CIA's new assessment, apparently eager to avoid damaging efforts toward rapprochement with… Khatami….
In effect, CIA analysts are warning that, given Iran's intensive efforts to steal or buy highly enriched uranium and plutonium, it is possible that it may have more bomb-grade material than previously believed….
Just last Friday, Russia's defense minister met with a top Iranian security official and pledged to maintain Moscow's military ties with Tehran….
…Iran has continued expanding its nuclear power sector even though it is among the world's largest oil producers.
Along with uranium deposits, a uranium-ore concentration facility and two research reactors, Iran has two nuclear research centers, including one in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, where American analysts believe that Iran is trying to make the explosive core of an atomic device.…
In addition to nuclear assistance, the United States believes that Russian companies and other organizations have provided Tehran with critical technology related to the development of ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons.
In a national intelligence assessment
issued last year, the American intelligence community said it believed
that by 2010 Iran, using Russian technology and assistance, might test
a missile that could reach targets in the United States….