BRIEF ON IRAN No. 465 Tuesday, July 30, 1996 Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran 3421 M St., NW, #1032 Washington, DC 20007 Iran's Shelling Scares off Refugees in North Iraq, Reuters, July 29 Iran's latest heavy shelling of northern Iraq has scared off thousands of Iranian Kurdish refugees, the United Nations refugee agency in Baghdad said on Monday. Iraq's UNHCR representative said the shelling had so far led to the flight of about 2,000 refugees. He said they were now huddling around the UNHCR office in Iraq's Kurdish province of Arbil, seeking protection and assistance.... A U.S.-led air force in southern Turkey protects Iraqi Kurds from possible attack's by Baghdad troops. Iraq-based Iranian exiles, the Mujahideen Khalq, issued a statement on Monday condemning Iran's shelling of northern Iraq and voicing support for the KDPI [Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran]. "We are standing side by side with our Kurdish compatriots and brothers against this evil clerical regime (in Iran)," Mujahideed leader, Massoud Rajavi, said. Germany Probes Iranian Over Killing of Ex-minister, Reuters, July 29 BONN - Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into an Iranian citizen in connection with the killing of former Iranian minister Reza Mazlouman in Paris last May, a spokeswoman said on Monday. The move came after France requested the extradition of Ahmad Jeyhouni for the murder of Mazlouman... German prosecutors are also investigating whether Jeyhouni, an Iranian citizen, had been spying on Iranian opposition members living in exile in Germany, she said.... Iranian resistance officials allege that the Iranian embassy in Bonn houses a co-ordination center for Iranian attacks on dissidents living in Europe.... U.S. Official: Iran Is 10-15 Years From Becoming Nuclear, Dow Jones News, July 29 Iran is 10 to 15 years away from acquiring nuclear weapons - reason for Israel to be concerned about its security, the director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said. John Holum also said that by helping Iran to advance its civilian nuclear reactors, Russia was helping the Islamic republic to ''build an infrastructure and the level of expertise that would be useful for nuclear weapons.'' Israeli officials have been saying that Iran needs only another five years to become a nuclear power.... ''In the case of Iran, we have a more complex problem because they are clearly engaged in a network to acquire nuclear weapons... '' Appeasement as a Way of Life, The New York Times, July 28 The following is excerpts from an op-ed by John Bolton, president of the National Policy Forum and an Assistant Secretary of State in the Bush Administration. Our European allies are professing anger at a recent Congressional measure... The Europeans appeal to "free trade," but they miss the point; this dispute goes far beyond economics. The real problem is that the West is divided and aimless in the face of real, direct and growing threats to the lives and security of its citizens. Although recent Congressional debate focused on Iran's and Libya's support for terrorism, the support of these and other nations for proliferation of weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical and biological - is even more pressing... The Europeans oppose sanctions and other such "extraterritorial" measures, but they offer little to resolve the threat of mass destruction posed by Iran and Libya... Citing the Iranian role in the recent exchange of Lebanese prisoners for the remains of Israeli soldiers, the Europeans argue that they have rendered Iran less dangerous by keeping up a "critical dialogue" with it and selling it high-technology equipment. But this argument demonstrates only that some Europeans have never lost faith in appeasement as a way of life. It is clear that Iran is cynically manipulating gullible (or equally cynical) Europeans to advance its development of weapons of mass destruction. Iran has made the "critical dialogue" an end in itself, and many Europeans have acquiesced in the charade for financial gain.... OnNewsLine ( Radio Israel, July 28 - Shaheen Nazeri, an Iranian woman, who was stabbed by Iranian government's agents in Sweden was saved from the wounds that threatened her life. This assassination attempt followed a similar attempt on Iranian journalist, Mohammed Orsi, two weeks ago. Ms. Nazeri said that one of the two perpetrators was an agent based in Iranian embassy in Stockholm. ( Iran Zamin News Agency, July 27 - According to a report by regime's Ministry of Health, a high percentage of Iranian pregnant women die while giving birth. Teenage mothers constitute 25% of the group. ( Radio France International, July 26 - Chinese government has granted a $270 million loan to Iran to construct a new metro in Tehran.