Back to Brief on Iran
The Mojahedin Command inside Iran issued a detailed report today on 64 major antigovernment demonstrations and strikes in different cities across Iran during the month of January. Many of these acts of protest have culminated in violent clashes between protesters and Revolutionary Guards and members of other suppressive agencies.
The Mojahedin Command inside Iran reported that during January, workers staged strikes in 17 industrial centers and factories, mainly in protest against the non-payment of wages and the mullahs' repressive policies in the work environment.
During the same period, Iran witnessed
19 major student strikes and campus demonstrations. Among others, these
antigovernment strikes and protests took place at Shiraz University, Kerman
University, Sahand University of Technology in Tabriz.
Khamenei Says Elections Will Be Slap For US, Agence France Presse, February 2
TEHRAN - Mullahs' supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for a massive turnout in this month's general elections, predicting their result would be a slap in the face for the United States.
Khamenei scoffed at US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who said Sunday Washington was waiting for the election to determine future policy towards Tehran.
Albright was "naive", Khamenei said.
In calling for a massive turnout Khamenei
followed the line of Khatami, who on Monday urged Iranians to vote en masse
if they honored Khamenei and supported the government.
Planes Collide At Tehran Airport: Two Colonels, Three Captains and Two Lieutenants of Mullahs' Air Force Were Killed, Iran Zamin News Agency, February 2
A C-130 Hercules military transport plane of the Iranian regime's Air Force collided this morning with an Airbus passenger aircraft at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. According to reports from Iran, the military plane's seven crew members - all of them Air Force officers - were killed in the ensuing blaze.
With the mullahs' army conducting war
games in the western and southwestern areas of the country in the past
few days, three to four C-130 planes have been taking off from Mehrabad
Airport every day to ferry troops, supplies and military hardware to Ahwaz,
Ilam and Kermanshah, where the exercises are underway.
Regime's Active Pursuit of WMDs, Agence France Presse, February 22
WASHINGTON - Iran actively sought technology and equipment for weapons of mass destruction programs last year from suppliers in Russia, China, North Korea and western Europe, the CIA said in a report made public Wednesday.
"In doing so, Tehran is attempting to develop an indigenous capability to produce various types of weapons -- nuclear, chemical and biological -- and their delivery systems," said the report to Congress by the CIA's Non-Proliferation Center.
It said entities in Russia and China supplied "a considerable amount and a wide variety of ballistic missile-related goods and technology to Iran" during the period.
"Tehran is using these goods and technologies to support current production programs and to achieve its goal of becoming self-sufficient in the production of ballistic missiles," it said.
Iran, which tested a medium-range Shahab-3 missile in July 1998, probably could deploy a limited number of Shahab-3 prototypes in a crisis, it said.
The report noted comments by Iranian officials acknowledging work to develop a Shahab-4 missile, and plans for a Shahab-5.
Iran also was in the market for dual use biotechnical equipment during the first half of 1999, "ostensibly for civilian uses," the report said. Iran began a biological warfare program during the Iran-Iraq war and may have some a limited deployment capability, it said.
On the chemical weapons front, it sought "technology, expertise, and chemicals that could be used as precursor agents in its chemical warfare (CW) program from entities in Russia and China," the report said.
"It also acquired or attempted to acquire indirectly through intermediaries in other countries equipment and material that could be used to create a more advanced and self-sufficient CW infrastructure," it said.
"Iran is attempting to establish a complete nuclear fuel cycle for its civilian energy program," it said. "In that guise, it seeks to obtain whole facilities, such as a uranium conversion facility, that in fact could be used in any number of ways in support of efforts to produce fissile material needed for a nuclear weapon."