DUBAI - The Mojahedin Khalq, Iran's main armed opposition group based in Iraq, said in a statement sent to Reuters in Dubai that its members had clashed with Iran's forces during Iranian war games in Kermanshah province. They said Iranian forces had searched for Mijahedin fighters, "hitting innocent and defenseless villagers."

The Mojahedin Khalq said two of its members were killed, but also that several Iranians were killed or wounded. They said the Iranian forces included the Revolutionary Guards, army and security units in Kermanshah.

IRNA had earlier reported that the Iranian army was holding war games in the Gilan-e Qarb region of Kermanshah province, a western region near the Iraqi border.

Mojahedin bases in Iraq have been the target of air and rocket attacks from inside Iran.

[Associated Press: The Mojahedin Khalq confirmed the clashes and the two deaths, saying the fighting lasted 10 hours.

["The mullahs' helicopter gunships entered the battle and combed and strafed a large area ... in search of the Mojahedin," the statement said. It said several guards were also killed or injured in the fighting. ]

[Iran Zamin News Agency: Two commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were wounded today in 10-hour clashes with Mojahedin military units in western Iran. Allahdad Mansouji, a veteran commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Gilan-e Gharb, and Ezzat Hemmati, an officer of the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Directorate, were wounded in the fierce fighting and are now in Gilan-e Gharb hospital.]
 

'60 Minutes' Stands By Its Report, Associated Press, June 16

NEW YORK - The CBS News program ''60 Minutes'' isn't backing down from its story about a self-described Iranian terrorist czar, even as the CIA and FBI reportedly brand him a liar.

"We're not distancing ourselves from the story at all,'' spokesman Kevin Tedesco said Friday. "Nothing has changed.''

The June 4 segment profiled an Iranian defector who days earlier claimed that he had coordinated Iran's overseas assassinations and terrorist operations.

The man, who identified himself as Ahmad Behbahani, said it was Iran that blew up Pam Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people - a crime for which two Libyans are on trial.

Such a claim would disrupt that trial and damage State Department efforts to improve relations with Iran, correspondent Lesley Stahl noted in the report, "if his story can be confirmed - and American intelligence is trying to do that right now.''

But after interviews conducted by intelligence officials, the CIA and FBI concluded the man lied and lacked basic knowledge of Iran's intelligence apparatus, according to a U.S. intelligence official quoted anonymously by The Washington Post on Sunday.

"All this has to be seen through what is the murky prism of Middle Eastern politics,'' Tedesco of ''60 Minutes'' said. "There are many people who have reason to discredit this guy.''

Restating the show's faith in its report and the decision to air it, he said: "Any time we are aware of a suspect in the custody of the CIA being debriefed about some of the biggest, worst terrorist acts ever committed, and who has been confirmed by high government sources as being in Iranian intelligence, that's a story we're going to put on the air. And we'd do it again.''
 

News Briefs

Agence France Presse, June 18 - Iranian journalist Hesamtollah Tabarzadi was arrested after answering a summons to appear at a Tehran revolutionary court, the student union said Sunday. Several journalists are currently serving prison terms for "offending Islam," among them former interior minister Abdollah Nuri, who has been hospitalized.

Reuters, June 17 - Mohammad Khatami replaced a cabinet minister and appointed two new advisers on Saturday in the first sign of an expected reshuffle. Post and Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Reza Aref was transferred to head the newly-created State Administrative and Planning Organization.

Agence France Presse, June 18 - Iranian authorities should be finished trying 13 Jews accused of spying by Thursday with a verdict ready one week later, said Hossein Ali-Amiri, a judicial spokesman. On Sunday Amiri said that the revolutionary tribunal was waiting for "a response from the country's authorities" that is important for the trial, without giving more detail.

Agence France Presse, June 18 - Publisher Ali-Reza Khoshandam has been arrested on charges of "offending Islam", the press reported on Saturday.

Khoshandam, who was arrested Thursday on order of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, is alleged to have "criticized" the supremacy of the Ali Khamenei.

Agence France Presse, June 16 - Six Iranian film magazines have received warnings after they published pictures of actors from before the Islamic Revolution, a state cultural official told the daily Kayhan.

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