The Mojahedin Command inside Iran reported that in two extensive operations on Sunday, Mojahedin military units attacked regime's forces in Kermanshah and Ilam provinces, inflicting heavy casualties on the mullahs' forces. The report in parts said:

"1. Mojahedin units pounded with a barrage of 107-mm missiles the command headquarters of the State Security Forces in Sumar in Kermanshah Province… early today.

"Sumar's SSF command HQ consists of a regional station of the Intelligence Ministry, known as "Intelligence School," an electronic surveillance and espionage center and a training center for the regime's agents and terrorists. All these installations were targeted in today's attack…

"2. Mojahedin military units hit the State Security Forces command HQ and a garrison of the 16th Armored Division of the mullahs' army north of Saleh-Abad in Ilam province with 15 rounds of 82-mm mortars at 3 am this morning.

"The main task of the 16th Armored Division and the State Security Forces stationed north of Saleh-Abad is to suppress the people and young dissidents, particularly Mojahedin's supporters in this region's towns and villages."
 

"Reformers" in Parliament Surrender, The Washington Times, August 10

TEHRAN — Iran's humiliated parliament dropped its ambitious reform agenda yesterday, giving in to hard-line clerics who, with a broad counteroffensive this week, have demonstrated their determination to wrest power….

Although the reformists won control of about two-thirds of the Majlis seats in elections earlier this year, the showdown over press freedom illustrated that power still rests with the ayatollah.

There has been little mention of press freedom since…

Analysts said yesterday that not only did the ayatollah defeat the press bill, but he also opened a salvo in what is seen as a counteroffensive by Islamic hard-liners against the whole reform movement…

Mr. Khatami has stayed entirely out of the free-press debate and even stayed out of Tehran by visiting Kurdish regions of Iran in the last few days. He has therefore appeared even more powerless than before….

The English language Iran News, a reformist newspaper, said yesterday that the conservative attack has already served to divide the reformists members of parliament.

"Some MPs who entered the Majlis on the [reformist] ticket are undermining the reformists by shifting to the right," the paper said yesterday.

In particular, clerics such as Majlis Speaker Mehdi Karrubi of the Militant Clergy Association, sided with the supreme leader in ending debate on press freedom, leaving the more secular-minded reformists isolated….
 

State Media in Control of Shaping Public Opinion, Agence France Presse, August 13

TEHRAN - With the closure of nearly all the pro-reform press, conservative-run state radio and television are virtually alone in shaping public opinion in Iran.

Significantly, the head of the IRIB is named directly by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the traditional guardian of the nation's revolutionary orthodoxy.

Last week the interior ministry, led by a close Khatami ally, accused IRIB of political maneuvering by encouraging people to turn out for a rally - in support of curbs on the press.

Meanwhile an IRIB newsreader reported the ministry's letter of complaint, saying it was the first time in memory that a ministry had "allowed itself to give the clear order for news censorship."

State media have always held an advantage over the newspapers in this vast nation, in which only a handful of provincial capitals get the papers -- leaving innumerable towns and villages dependent on IRIB for its news.
 

Two More Journalists Arrested In Iran, Agence France Presse, August 13

TEHRAN - Another journalist close to Khatami, Mohammad Qoushani, has been arrested by the Iranian courts, the official IRNA news agency reported Sunday.

It was the second such arrest reported Sunday by IRNA, which said earlier that another Khatami ally, Ibrahim Nabavi, had been jailed overnight Saturday.
 

Iran Orders Book Revealing Dissidents' Murders Off The Shelves, Agence France Presse, August 12

TEHRAN - The press court has banned a controversial book by imprisoned journalist Emadeddin Baghi and ordered all copies removed from bookstores, Baghi's associates said on Saturday.

The book covers the shocking 1998 assassination of several intellectuals and dissident leaders as well as the democratic process in the Islamic regime.

Baghi was slapped with a five-and-a-half year prison sentence in May following complaints filed by the Revolutionary Guards corps and by former intelligence chief Ali Fallahian.

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