The regime used three 320mm super mortar launchers which had been placed in a 16-tons "Mann" truck filled up with bricks. The truck had been equipped with thick metal pieces and special batteries made in Iran, to mount the mortar launchers. To complete th e cover-up, even the bricks had been loaded in Iran. The truck was parked 600 meters away from the security zone around the Mojahedin's office. The big mortars each weighed 200 kgs and contained 125 kgs of explosives. They were fired by a timer system and the sound of explosions was heard in many parts of the city.
The first mortar exploded 160 meters away from the truck, in front of the Central Health Laboratory on Sheibani Ave. It created a big hole three meters deep and 5 meters wide. It destroyed the laboratory and the cars around it. The windows of the building s and residential houses in the area were shattered. The second and third explosions destroyed the building belonging to the Union of Iraqi writers and poets and hit the Haidari Hospital, inflicting heavy damages and creating another big pit of similar di mensions.
The sound of explosions frightened the patients hospitalized in Haidari Hospital and seven other hospitals and a maternity hospital in the area who poured out to the streets. The windows of houses within a large radius were shattered and the houses, shops and dozens of vehicles in the area suffered damages. The hand of an Iraqi citizen and the leg of another were cut and a number of others, including several innocent children were wounded. Except for the shattering of windows, the Mojahedin's office did n ot suffer any damages.
The terrorists' truck and mortar launchers were confiscated by the Mojahedin.
A similar mortar launcher was sent abroad early last year to target the residence of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance's President-elect, outside Paris. The gun was loaded on a ship called Kolahdooz and sent to the port of Antwerp in Belgium. Ano ther mortar launcher had been sent to Baghdad to target the Mojahedin's central office at the time of visit by Mr. Massoud Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance's leader. Both guns were discovered and the mullahs' terrorist conspiracies foiled.
In 1995, when Khamenei lost hope in targeting the residences of the leadership of the Iranian Resistance by ordinary weapons, he ordered the Organization of Military Industry to make giant mortar launchers. The Mojahedin revealed at the time that 20 morta r launchers, considered as weapons of mass destruction, had been manufactured.
The mullahs' defeated attack on the Mojahedin's central office in Baghdad took place following several days of extensive propaganda about the "infiltration", arrest and deaths of a number of Mojahedin in western Iran, intended to prepare the grounds for t his terrorist operation.
On Jan. 3, the Mojahedin's office in Baghdad warned against preparations by the regime to launch air raids, missile attacks and terrorist operations against the bases of the Iranian Resistance. On Jan. 6 and 7, the Mojahedin's Command Headquarters inside Iran announced that following the popular uprisings in Kermanshah province and the restless social climate in western Iran which coincided with the new phase of the activities of the nationwide Resistance forces, the regime is planning to retaliate and is preparing the grounds of terrorist operations and military attacks. Rafsanjani's trip to Ilam Province which took place around the same time, revealed the regime's fear of the Resistance and the suppressive and terrorist conspiracies planned.
The cowardly attack this Tuesday, was the 43rd terrorist operation of the mullahs' regime since January 1993 against the Mojahedin and bases of the National Liberation Army in Iraq.
Mr. Massoud Rajavi, leader of the Iranian Resistance, expressed his sympathies with the victims who suffered injuries or other damages and wished them quick recovery. Mr. Rajavi added: These anti-human crimes will not solve any problems of the mullahs rul ing Iran. The trip of the Iranian Resistance's President-elect to the frontiers of her homeland has already tolled the bells for the downfall of this regime and the mullahs cannot evade being overthrown. The cries of the people of Kermanshah, Ilam and Khu zistan, just as the cries of the nationwide Resistance and the National Liberation Army will not be silenced by such desperate attempts.
The leader of the Iranian Resistance urged the government of Iraq to pursue and prosecute the Khomeini regime's terrorist diplomats and close their embassy which conspires terrorist operations and spies against the opposition.
Mr. Rajavi recalled that the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran is the principal source of export of terrorism and fundamentalism. He urged the UN Secretary General and members of the Security Council to condemn the regime's anti-human crime to night and by the adoption of binding decisions do not allow Iran's ruling mullahs to take advantage of the silence of the international community to continue their crimes against the people of Iran and against peace and tranquillity in this part of the wo rld. He emphasized that the Iranian Resistance reserves its legitimate right to self-defense against the terrorist crimes of the mullahs' regime.
Office of the People's Mojahedin of Iran - Baghdad
January 7, 1997
CC:
- UN Secretary General
- President and members of the UN Security Council
- Special Representative of the UN Human Rights Commission on the situation of human rights in Iran
- President of the International Committee of the Red Cross
- UN High Commissioner for Refugees
- International human rights organizations
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