BAGHDAD - Iran's armed opposition, the People's Mujahedeen, said Tuesday it had foiled a mortar attack on their Baghdad headquarters by "Iranian agents."

"One of our members prevented at 7.00 a.m. a mortar attack by agents of the Iranian regime aimed at our headquarters in Baghdad," Mojahedin spokesman Farid Soulaimani told AFP.

"When the terrorists saw members of our group, they took off, abandoning the launcher for a 60-mm mortar and some ammunition," he said.

Soulaimani also said "agents of the Iranian regime opened fire at 5.00 p.m. on a Mojahedin car near the town of Al-Sawira," 30 miles south of Baghdad.

"There was an exchange of fire between the Mojahedin and the terrorists who fled the scene, but with no casualties," he said.

Six mortar shells exploded on March 22 in a Baghdad neighborhood housing many Palestinian refugees, killing two Iraqis and two Palestinians, and injuring 38.

The Iraqi authorities blamed Tehran for "this criminal operation," but Iran categorically denied involvement.

On Saturday, the Iraqi military said it had shot down an Iranian pilotless plane near the border, the second time in 11 days, amid claims by the Mojahedin that Tehran was stepping up reconnaissance flights to attack its bases inside Iraq.
 

Briton Jailed In US For Shipping Air Parts To Iran, Reuters, March 27

NEW HAVEN - A British citizen was sentenced on Monday to more than four years in prison for illegally shipping more than $20 million worth of U.S. aircraft engine parts to Iran, a federal prosecutor said.

Pietro Rigolli, a British citizen living in Quebec, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Janet Hall in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to 52 months in prison and was fined $100,000, U.S. Attorney Stephen Robinson said.

The scheme, carried out between 1989 and 1999, was one of the largest exporting cases ever investigated by U.S. Customs officials, Robinson said.

Prosecutors said Rigolli bought "large quantities of aircraft engine parts" from U.S. companies including East Hartford, Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp., and San Francisco-based Banner Aircraft Industries.

They said he then arranged for the parts to be shipped to Iran Aircraft Industries, a company owned by the Iranian government. U.S. law prohibited such exports to Iran.

"Rigolli caused the parts to be shipped to him, care of his business, Air Rig, Incorporated, and then reshipped to Iran through a circuitous route, most often through Switzerland," Robinson said in a statement.
 

"Reformers" Are Trying To Guarantee Existence Of Security Organizations, (Pro-Khatami Daily) Asr-E Azadegan, March 27

The converging efforts that are in the making to distract the investigation of the assassination of Mr. Saeed Hajjarian should be taken as a serious warning for the reformist movement…

Apparently, in recent days two options are being added to the case by all conservatives. One is the famous "willful elements" which are being blamed for the assassination by the official organizations responsible for the case, and the second is trying to insinuate that the 2nd of Khordad elements have carried out the assassination in line with "internal purges"…

Nevertheless, the country’s security and judiciary bodies have fallen into the distracting trap of the conservatives… Extensive efforts are made to avoid implicating military bodies in the assassination of Hajjarian… These bodies should be assured that the reformists by no means believe in the principle of "everything or nothing" in criticizing the political system… If they support the free flow of information in the case of Saeed Hajjarian, mentioning the affiliation of certain individuals to certain organizations, they are in fact trying to guarantee the existence of those organizations by diagnosing their maladies.
 

Fire Ravages Historic Square In Isfahan, Agence France Presse, March 28

TEHRAN - Fire severely damaged or destroyed at least 28 shops in the royal square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan Tuesday, one of the country's most historic sites, the official news agency IRNA reported.

Firefighters took two hours to bring the blaze under the control, said the agency. The royal square is a major tourist attraction and is listed by both Iran and the UN cultural organization UNESCO as an important heritage site.

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