BRIEF ON IRAN No. 416 Monday, May 20, 1996 Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran 3421 M Street NW #1032 Washington, DC 20007 Mullahs Intensify Terror Campaign to Undermine Mideast Peace, Associated Press, May 17 JERUSALEM - Israeli leaders and anti-terrorism experts say Iran is behind a campaign to set off attacks before Israel's May 29 elections in hopes of wrecking Mideast peace. Israel says it has evidence that Iran was directly involved in a suicide bombing plot in Israel.... Iran's higher profile appears to be a response to divisions within the Palestinian militant group Hamas... Although Iran funds Hamas, it feels the group is increasingly unwilling to confront Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and has decided to send its own operatives, the Jerusalem Post reported Friday, quoting an unnamed Israeli security official.... On Friday, a Hamas political leader, Mohammed Zahhar, said the group was ready to halt the violence and renew dialogue with Yasser Arafat.... But Iran reportedly has sent dozens of agents to the Palestinian areas to set up a rival group to Izzedine al Qassam.... "It is becoming clear that Iran is escalating its terror campaign to undermine the peace process," said Ariel Merari, a terrorism expert at Tel Aviv University.... Mullahs' Fundamentalism, Terrorism in Saudi Arabia, Associated Press, May 17 MANAMA, Bahrain - A senior Iranian cleric said Friday that young people were pushing for revolutionary changes in Saudi Arabia, Iran's archrival in the Islamic world, Tehran radio reported. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a senior member of the powerful Guardian Council, did not provide details.... "The state of silence and surrender is changing," Jannati said.... The remarks were the strongest Iranian comment in recent months on the internal situation in the oil-rich Saudi kingdom, where a powerful car bomb at a U.S. run training facility in Riyadh killed five Americans and two Indians in November.... Jannati's comments coincided with a U.S. State Department advisory urging Americans in Saudi Arabia to "exercise caution" and "keep a low profile." The statement Thursday said the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh "has received an anonymous phone call threatening retaliation against Americans in Saudi Arabia if four Saudi citizens charged in a car bombing six months ago are punished."... Mullahs Launch Crackdown on Un-Islamic Values, Reuters, May 18 NICOSIA - Up to 230,000 members of a volunteer force fighting social ills in Iran will enforce a week-long crackdown on "un-Islamic values," Tehran radio said on Saturday. The radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation, said the headquarters of the Basij paramilitary force announced that the "Week for Promoting Virtue and Prohibiting Vice" would start on Sunday.... Islamic militants have in the last few months increased their activity and attacked cinemas showing films deemed to be un-Islamic as well as a Tehran park used by women for cycling. Tehran Students Protest Attacks on Universities by Mullahs' Thugs, BBC Radio, May 16 A large number of student at Tehran's universities have signed petitions and issued statements asking the officials to curb the activities of Ansar-e Hezbollah which have attacked universities and classrooms.... In recent months and especially in the past two weeks, Ansar-e Hezbollah has succeeded to create an atmosphere of terror by... hiding behind the guise of inviting to virtue and prohibiting vice. Short News * Reuters, May 19, Kayhan daily said five men, aged between 21 and 23, were hanged in the bazaar of Tabriz, 390 miles northwest of Tehran.... It said two men were hanged in Kermanshah, 328 miles west of Tehran... * Radio France International, May 18, According to the Turkish official news agency, Saturday afternoon, the Turkish President escaped an attempted assassination attack.... The assassin, Ibrahim Gomrukublu, 48, is an Islamic extremist. * Komeleh Radio, May 16, Due to enormous social pressures created by Mullahs' rule, a young girl in the city of Saqez, who had recently lost her parents, poured gasoline on herself and around her room and set herself afire. The younger sister, who rushed to help her, hugged her and the two sisters lost their lives in a dramatic and emotional circumstances.