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In a message on the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution that brought down the Shah's dictatorship, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, thanked Iranians inside the country and abroad who have sent messages of congratulations and support after the mortar attacks on the headquarters of Khamenei and Rafsanjani in Tehran.
In the message, broadcast today by the Resistance's radio and television networks, Rajavi said: "The attack on the palace that once housed the Shah and is now the mullahs' premises startled the world. For all the people of Iran, this was an unmistakable sign that the mullahs have reached the final lap of their rule."
Mr. Rajavi referred to the July uprising by students and people of Tehran, Tabriz and other cities across the county and the nation-wide cry of "down with dictatorship," saying that the upheaval effectively thwarted Khatami's plot to preserve the "mullahs' monarchy" with a different mask.
Mr. Rajavi said: "The sole criterion for judging a reformer is his commitment to free elections as the basis of democratic rule. In Iran, the rejection of velayat-e faqih (the Supreme Leader) and the holding of a free and fair election must top a reformer's agenda, otherwise talk of reform and opening and civil society would only be instruments of demagoguery and deception. This is a clear line of demarcation between genuine reformers vis-a-vis factions such as the one headed by Khatami, whose sole concern is to win a bigger share of power from the Supreme Leader within the current religious dictatorship.
The NCR President said: "If the mullahs' ruling Iran and those who have pinned their hopes on the survival of this illegitimate regime deny the fact that the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people support the Resistance, then why don't they accept to hold a free election for the constituent assembly or presidency with sufficient international guarantees and under United Nations observation? Instead, they have constantly refused this offer."
Mr. Rajavi said: "The mullahs' dictatorship
is the enemy of the Iranian people and the enemy of humanity. It must be
overthrown by the people of Iran and their powerful arm, the National Liberation
Army of Iran."
Mujahedeen Reports News Attacks On Iranian Military Targets, Agence France Presse, February 12
NICOSIA - The armed opposition group the People's Mujahedeen said its fighters attacked military targets in southwestern Iran in two separate operations early Saturday.
In a statement received by AFP in Nicosia, the group said it had attacked the headquarters of a special forces battalion in Mussian, in the province of Ilam.
"Military units of the Mujahedeen poured a heavy barrage of 82-mm mortars on the headquarters of the 782nd battalion of the 23rd Airborne Division," it said.
Separately, it said its forces had set up ambushes on military roads around Einkhosh, also in Ilam province. "Several military patrols were destroyed in the operation," it said.
The Mujahedeen said that the two operations were conducted while government forces were on high alert following "extensive military exercises by the mullah's army in Khuzestan and Ilam to counter" its operations in the two border provinces.
At the end of last month Iran launched
the biggest military maneuvers on the border with Iraq since the end of
their nine-year war, as Mujahedeen who claim to have 50,000 heavily-armed
guerrillas, attacks in the region showed a marked increase.
Iran Election Rallies Fail To Draw Crowds, The Financial Times, February 11
Rallies held on the first official day of campaigning for Iran's parliamentary elections attracted barely any attention on Thursday and organizers admitted undeveloped party machineries would struggle to get their message across.
... Many Iranians say they voted for Mr. Khatami as a form of protest against the previous administration and are not so sure this time how they will cast their ballot, given a plethora of candidates, many unknown.
Only about 200 people showed up at a hall in a working-class area of south Tehran to listen to Mohammad Reza Khatami, head of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the president's younger brother.
An even smaller crowd attended a rally held by the centrist Executives of Construction party addressed by Mohammad Ali Najafi, head of the state Plan and Budget Organization and a key figure behind the president's efforts to reform Iran's economy. And only about 40 people, mostly elderly men, filed into a large mosque in central Tehran to listen to candidates of the conservative coalition.
... In Tehran alone there are 870 candidates
running for 30 seats. The reformist coalition, the May 23 Front, has split
in the capital, unable to agree on a common list of candidates...