CAIRO - Iranian opposition group said it bombed the headquarters of the Intelligence Ministry in Tehran on Saturday in response to the government's suppression of demonstrations last week.

Farid Soleimani, spokesman for the Mujahedeen Khalq, said 20 mortars were fired at the headquarters, causing extensive damage to the buildings. The spokesman said several people were killed or wounded in the evening attack.

Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported the attack, saying explosions were heard, but offered no other details.

"The bombing was in response to the bloody suppression of the anti-government demonstration last Saturday," Soleimani told The Associated Press in Cairo. He said 20 mortars were fired to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the resistance against the Iranian regime.

On July 8, police fired bullets and tear gas at thousands of demonstrators marking the one-year anniversary of a police raid on a university dormitory. At least a dozen people were injured and scores were arrested.

[Washington Post, July 16: …Witnesses said they saw ambulances racing from the scene. Residents said they heard as many as 19 blasts, possibly mortar rounds.

[Police and militiamen sealed off the area, near a major freeway, preventing journalists and onlookers from approaching. Officers at the scene said they could provide no information, and no other details were immediately available.]
 

Iran's Increasingly Active Armed Opposition Strikes At Home and Abroad, Agence France Presse, July 16

TEHRAN - Iran's main opposition group, People's Mujahedeen, has stepped up its attacks in recent months, striking at the nerve centers of the state at home and harrying Iranian leaders when they travel abroad. The most recent attack has occurred in Tehran.

Saturday's report by the Mujahedeen is the latest in a long list of operations it says it has carried out.

In late June, a Mujahedeen statement received by AFP in Nicosia referred to "100 remarkable military operations in Tehran and the provinces" since April 1999, as well as "three nationwide political and publicity campaigns covering 600 cities, and 270 demonstrations in different countries" in support of the group.

The Mujahedeen also hit the headlines abroad last week, when they called mass demonstrations in Germany during the official visit there of Khatami, sparking some the biggest security measures ever seen in the country.

In tandem with their actions against Iranian leaders abroad, the movement has intensified its operations inside Iran, both along the border with Iraq and in the districts of the capital where official buildings are based, where they have struck right at the nerve centers of the regime.

The first of those major attacks took place on February 5 and was launched against the Tehran headquarters of the Expediency Council, the highest collective authority in the country headed by former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

Since then, the Mujahedeen have launched similar operations on almost a monthly basis, with offices of the intelligence ministry and barracks of the Revolutionary Guard seeming to be the favorite targets.

But the action is not limited to the capital.

On Thursday the Iranian army announced a clash with Mujahedeen fighters for the first time attempting to enter Iran from Iraq across the sensitive Shatt al-Arab waterway, known to the Iranians as the Arvand River.

The Mujahedeen confirmed the clash, but said it involved units based inside Iran. It said government forces had unsuccessfully "attempted to entrap and ambush the Mujahedeen during house-to-house searches and checks in the suburbs of Abadan.]
 

Iranian Missile Trial Successful, The Washington Post, July 16

TEHRAN - Iran successfully test-fired its Shahab-3 missile today, state media reported, the second trial in two years of the medium-range weapon capable of reaching Israel or U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia…

In Washington, U.S. officials said today that the test underscores long-standing concerns about the risk of weapons proliferation in the Persian Gulf. A State Department official said the United States would continue its "very extensive efforts to stop the proliferation of missile technology and equipment to Iran."

[Reuters: Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said that by testing the missile, which has a range of 808 miles, Iran was trying to scupper Middle East peace moves. He said the test posed a threat to Israel's defence.

A senior Israeli military source on Saturday predicted that by 2005, Iran would, with Russian help, be able to achieve a military nuclear capability.

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