In retaliation for the clerical regime's launching of 77 surface-to-surface missiles at National Liberation Army camps on April 18, Mojahedin operational units carried out a series of operations earlier Sunday, the Mojahedin Command inside Iran reported.

Some of these operations, code-named Roaring Lion, were conducted in Kermanshah and Ilam Provinces included:

1. Tactical HQ of 81st Division's 4th Brigade, south of Qasr-e Shirin, was pounded with 14 rounds of 122-mm multiple rocket launchers. Enemy forces suffered heavy losses and casualties. This headquarters was used for launching Scud missile attacks on a number of Mojahedin and NLA camps last Wednesday.

2. Positions of 81st Division's 108th Battalion were hit with 12 rounds of 107-mm multiple rocket launchers.

3. 81st Division's 340th Artillery Battalion was pounded with 15 rounds 120-mm mortars.

4. A base for the mullahs' intelligence agents and terrorists south of Qasr-e Shirin was hit with a barrage of 120-mm mortars. The base was used for reconnaissance operations against Mojahedin camps in the border region. A number of intelligence operatives and terrorists were killed or wounded.

5. The HQ of the 21st Division's 144th Battalion north of Saleh-Abad in Ilam Province was pounded with a heavy barrage of 120 mm mortars. Heavy casualties and damages were inflicted on enemy forces.

6. Positions of 21st Division's 2nd Brigade in Sarney, Ilam, were hit with a barrage of 120-mm mortars.

7. Patrol and ambush positions of the enemy's intelligence and security forces in Saleh-Abad in Ilam were hit with 60-mm mortars and a number of enemy forces were killed or wounded.

8. Forces of 84th Division's 1st Brigade in Maymeh were pounded with 12 rounds of 81-mm mortars.

9. The 84th Division's 749th Special Commando Battalion in Dehloran was hit with 107-mm multiple rocket launchers.

Two Mojahedin fighters, Mohammad-Ali Hejrati, a native of Kermanshah, and Shahram Jouyandeh, a native of Shiraz, were slain in the clashes.
 

U.N. Blasta Crackdown, Executions in Iran, Reuters, April 20

GENEVA - The United Nations on Friday deplored what it said were continuing human rights violations in Iran, especially a crackdown on freedom of the press and "cruel executions."

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution presented by the European Union which also called on Iran to end torture and amputations, and fully investigate killings of intellectuals and political activists.

The Commission also renewed the mandate of the U.N. special investigator for human rights in Iran, Canadian jurist Maurice Copithorne, whom Tehran has not allowed to visit since 1996.

Delegates applauded the outcome of the vote.

Swedish ambassador Johan Molander presented the resolution saying it aimed to contribute to support for reforms in Iran, where he recognized a "complex and evolving situation."
The text expressed concern at "the recent deterioration...with regard to freedom of opinion and expression, especially attacks against the freedom of the press, harsh
sentences imposed on those who participated in the Berlin Conference, the imprisonment of journalists and the harsh reactions to student demonstrations, including their imprisonment and mistreatment...."

It deplored "continued executions in the apparent absence of respect for internationally recognized safeguards, in particular public and especially cruel executions."

Iran's [UN envoy] Khorram told the forum: "This 18-year long process has proved to be ineffective and fruitless."
 

Former Police Chief Injured, Agence France Presse, April 22

TEHRAN - Former Tehran police chief Farhad Nazari, who headed a bloody crackdown on reformist students in 1999, escaped an assassination attempt in Tehran, a newspaper reported Sunday.

"Saturday at noon, two motorcyclists were stopped next to a car in which the soldier and his bodyguards were at a red light at an intersection in the north of Tehran," the Jam-e Jam newspaper said. The bikers "fired on the car," it added, quoting witnesses.

The assailants fled after shooting at Nazari, who had just left police headquarters in the area. No one was injured in the attack, the newspaper said.

But the People's Mujahedeen Organization, Iran's main armed opposition movement, said in a statement that Nazari had been wounded.

In a statement faxed to AFP in Nicosia on Saturday, the Mujahedeen did not speculate on who was behind the attack against Nazari, whom it denounced as "one of the most notorious of the mullahs' security forces and the butcher of Tehran students and residents."

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