294 Resistance attacks this year

The Washington Times, Sept. 3 - An Iranian exile groups based in Iraq said yesterday it had carried out 294 attacks against Iranian government targets this year. Mojahedin Khalq said in a statement distributed to reporters in Baghdad that the group's leader, Massoud Rajavi, "announced that in the first seven months of 1997, the Mojahedin have carried out 294 operations inside Iran."

The Iranian government has in the past few months reported increased clashes between security forces and the Mojahedin.

Reuter, Sept. 2 - An Iranian exile group based in Iraq said on Tuesday it had carried out 294 attacks against Iranian government targets this year.

Mohammad Mohaddessin, the group's foreign affairs chief, told reporters the operations ranged from attacking bases of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, their vehicles and engaging in clashes with them.

Rajavi said three new military camps had been set up along the border, bringing the number to eight, because of an influx of Iranians into neighbouring Iraq to join the group. Mujahideen bases in Iraq have been the target of air and rocket attacks by Tehran. Their office in Baghdad, now ringed by a concrete wall, has weathered mortar and bomb attacks. The group said on Monday that it had elected Mahvash Sepehri as its new secretary-general for two years. She replaced Shahrzad Sadr.

Protests

Voice of Mojahed, Sept. 3 - Workers and staff at Isfahan's Simin textile factory stopped work and staged a strike on August 30 from 6 to 9 a.m. to protest the regime's non-payment of their bonuses in 1996 and 1997.

The protesters had written a letter opposing the policies of the factory's directors, but had not received any attention The factory's general manager locked up the factory's entrance and called in the state security forces. He told the workers that th e non-payment of their bonuses is due to a lack of budget, but the workers believe that the factory's budget is plundered by its directors and managers.

Voice of Mojahed, Sept. 5 - On Monday September 1, taxi drivers in Hamedan staged a protest over fixed rates for taxi fares. The regime is not helping at all. Before the mullahs seized power, taxi drivers used to receive subsidies.

Repression continues

Salaam daily, Sept. 2 - A thief who had destroyed the wall of a camera shop and stolen 28 cameras, was convicted by Tehran's general court branch no. 12 and his four fingers will be chopped off... Upon completion of investigations, Branch 12 of Tehran's General Court, Gholam Hossein was condemned to amputation of his fingers. His accomplices were sentenced to jail and flogging. Hamshahri, Sept. 3 - Four armed robbers were condemned to death in Kerman. The verdicts for Reza Yazdanpanah, Abbas Razmdideh, Hamid Reza Mowlawi, and Ali Reza Esfandiari by the Supreme Court of Justice and they will be hanged in one of the squares in Ker man.

Women be ware!

Kermanshah radio, Sept. 6 - Friday Prayer leader, Haidari: On the issue of mal-veiling, I must say that women who wear heavy or light make up and appear in public, in front of strange men and show off themselves, they have some form of illness, some ki nd of moral and social problem. These type of women are devoid of human health and nature. They must beware of themselves. Our Islamic society, the Hezbollah, the families of the martyrs, and the great throngs of believers in God, how much more should the se people suffer?

Ressalat, Aug. 30 - General Ayat Goudarzi, the former Security Forces commander for combating social corruption was appointed as Commander of the State Security Forces in Greater Tehran. We need to remind him of several important points in this regard: You can see that mal-veiling and non-veiling, vulgar video and cassette tapes, and the common use of imported and satellite movies and other manifestations of the obscene culture of West are abundant in Tehran. Your decisive and persistent reaction to thi s matter is therefore necessary to change Tehran as it befits our revolution and our Islamic capital.

Foreign policy

Agence France Presse, Sept. 5 - Iran's former President, Rafsanjani, warned the government against any from of improved relations with Washington, which he said was

trying to create discord in Iran's political elite. Speaking at the Friday prayers at Tehran University, he said: "We must not be fooled by the deceptive ploys of Americans, because they do not like us very much." He said Mohammad Khatami's new government must be conscious and decisively resist against Ame ricans so that they would give up the wish of peddling influence in Iran.

Velayat-e Faqih under fire

BBC radio, Farsi service, Sept. 1 - Two weeks after the new government started its work,... Tehran's newspapers have begun a debate on the role of the clergy in government and the limitations on the authority of the President. Fundamentalist and extrem ist papers have responded to these debates with dismay.

Iran, the paper affiliated with Iran's official news agency... covered the views of M.M. Sazegar who defended the intellectuals vs. the clergy...

Kayhan also had a long article about the clergy and the rule of the Velayat-e Faqih. According to Kayhan's writer, a new current has emerged which believes that the authorities of the Leader must be limited within the Constitution. While Kayhan's writer believes that Vali-e Faqih has been appointed by God and the Council of Guardians has only discovered him.

Kermanshah radio, Sept. 6 - Friday prayers of Ahwaz, mullah Haidari: [Khamenei] had a very important and invaluable speech last week in which he said that the West's cultural onslaught is a serious matter. Regrettably, however, some people still do not understand this. Now, I would like to add to Khamenei's words and say that we should recognize the sharp edge of the enemy's cultural onslaught.

It is true that advocating recklessness, moral corruption, non-veiling and mal-veiling as well as drugs and addiction are the methods employed in the West's cultural onslaught. Beyond this, however, cultural onslaught attacks the foundations of our nat ion's faith. On the top of these foundations is the issue of Velayat-e Faqih on which the enemy has focused all its energy. This is the greatest scheme of the West's cultural onslaught. Unfortunately, however, some of our local writers play into their han ds by writing articles against the Velayat-e Faqih in the state-run newspapers which receive the nation's budget.

Council for Discernment of State's Exigencies

Tehran radio, Sept. 7 - The Council for the Discernment of the Exigencies of the State formed five commissions and began its work on drafting the general policies of the Islamic Republic. At the end of today's session, Rafsanjani said: These commission s monitor the political and security affairs, the cultural and social matters, the judicial matters, the economics and trade, and the infrastructure and production and will examine the general policies in these fields upon any request by Khamenei.

He said: We had a meeting in the presence of His Eminence Khamenei. He asked us to examine and make decisions about the general policies of the country and forward the results to the Leader.

BBC radio, Farsi service, Sept. 7 - Kayhan's editorial expressed satisfaction over the beginning of the work of the Council for the Discernment of the Exigencies of the State: The Council must draft plans for countering the various economic, political and military crises which the regime may encounter.

Export and build-up of arms

AFP, Sept. 4 - The court of Mannheim, west of Germany, announced that five persons had been arrested and imprisoned for involvement in the smuggling of tank parts to Iran. Three of them were German and the other two were foreigners, who attempted to il legally smuggle 50 tons of arms worth 12.5 million DMs or 6.95 million dollars. The parts were to be sent to Yemen, but were stopped in Slovania while in transit. The smugglers were arrested last week and will be tried in Germany, according to the law.

Voice of America, Sept. 4 - In Afghanistan, Taleban officials say that they have arrested at least two Iranian soldiers with large caches of arms... The two soldiers were arrested in a clash in the western county of Farah near the Iranian border. The a rrests, Taleban officials say, proves Iranian meddling in the fights in Afghanistan... The Taleban also announced recently that they had arrested an Iranian spy in Kabul who carried large amounts of explosives made in Iran.

European Union

NCR secretariat, Sept. 4 - NCR President Massoud Rajavi sent a telegram to the leaders of the European Union and urged them to adopt a decisive policy and impose trade and diplomatic sanctions against the mullahs, thereby putting an end to the regime's abuse of international silence and apathy.

Rajavi said: There is talk about the return of EU ambassadors to Tehran and meeting with the mullahs' Foreign Minister on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, while the torture and execution of dissidents and export of terrorism by Iran's ruling theocracy is taking on new dimensions every day.

He emphasized that Khatami's cabinet will continue the regime's past policies and oppose the Middle East peace process under the supervision of the Vali-e Faqih (or the mullahs' supreme leader).

Finding "moderates" within the mullahs' regime was tested once before, 12 years ago, and the notion was buried with the Irangate scandal, Mr. Rajavi added. The NCR President referred to the verdict by the German Federal Court in Berlin and the statements by a Swiss magistrate that have confirmed the direct role of the highest officials of the mullahs' regime in the assassination of Iranian opponents abroad.

ANSA, Sept. 6 - The National Council of Resistance condemns EU's sending of an envoy to Tehran for talks aimed at the return of EU ambassadors to Iran. Two days ago, the NCR President Massoud Rajavi sent a telegram to the EU heads of state and urged them to adopt a decisive policy and impose economic and trade sanctions against the mullahs.

AFP, Sept. 7 - Some 30 French parliamentarians from the majority parties in the government opposed France's resumption of diplomatic ties with Iran. 22 members of parliament, three senators, and seven socialist, communist and greens MEPs, as well as a large number of labor union leaders and French academics signed a petition in which they called on the government of France to refrain from establishing diplomatic ties with the Iranian government and sending the French ambassador to Iran, so long as the Iranian government has not officially refrained from terrorism and assassination of its opponents, and the death decree against Salman Rushdie.

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