BRIEF ON IRAN Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran No. 471 Wednesday, August 7, 1996 3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007 Large Mortars Raise Risk in Saudi Arabia, The Washington Post, August 4 U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia are operating under the threat of imminent terrorist attack, not only from huge car bombs and chemical weapons but also from a possible new threat, powerful mortars that can fire projectiles long distances, Defense Secretary William J. Perry said yesterday. The threat of mortar attack is one reason 4,000 Air Force personnel are moving from the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran, the target of the June 25 truck bomb that killed 19 people, and moving to a remote desert air base 60 miles south of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, U.S. military officials said.... U.S. defense officials have grown increasingly concerned about the possibility of terrorists or other military forces hostile to the United States mounting attacks using transportable mortars, U.S. military officials said.... Moreover, international intelligence officials have spent months investigating Iranian mortar parts and shells found hidden in a shipment of pickled cucumbers aboard an Iranian freighter docked at Antwerp last March, according to private intelligence experts and published reports.... The Iranian mortars are of a design that can be disassembled and transported in trunks by terrorists, said [the Iranian dissident organization] the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The 320-mm mortar can be fired by using a delayed fuze, giving attackers time to escape, they said.... Bonn Approves Sale of Airplanes to Iran, The Washington Times, August 6 Germany has approved the sale of five transport aircraft to Iran that could be used by the terrorist-supporting nation for coastal patrols or electronic intelligence gathering, according to a classified CIA report. The aircraft sale was approved last months after Germany's Foreign Ministry reversed its earlier opposition to the export of the aircraft to the defense Industries Organization, the production arm of the Iranian Defense Ministry, according to a CIA report obtained by The Washington Times.... Detlef Lingemann, a German Embassy press spokesman said the German government has not authorized the delivery of any German aircraft to military recipients in Iran.... But the intelligence report stated that the German Foreign Ministry may have caved in to pressure from the German Economics Ministry in allowing the sale. The Economics Ministry has been trying to increase exports, the report stated.... "Europe Should Not Obstruct Anti-terrorism Efforts", Associated Press, August 6 WASHINGTON — Defying European allies, the Clinton administration is vowing to go it alone in punishing Iran and Libya as terrorism supporters by penalizing foreign firms that do business with the two Middle Eastern nations.... Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, the top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, told NBC today, "We want to use this bill as leverage with our allies to develop a more multilateral approach to sanctions. This bill gives the president more tools to deal with the phenomenon of terrorism." "If the Europeans don't want to go along with us they should at least get out of the way," [the State Department spokesman, Nicholas] Burns said.... He said the GOP-sponsored law, which passed Congress last month with no opposition, represented the right approach to sponsors of terrorism and that the allies eventually would come over to the U.S. view.... Mullahs Crushing People Like a Cigarette Butt, Associated Press, August 6 TEHRAN — The mural of an American flag with the red streaks of rockets and white skulls as stars is a curious relic. The weekly chants of "Death to Israel" at Tehran University sound more rehearsed than revolutionary. And the seemingly endless war of words between Tehran and Washington plays itself out once again, this time against a backdrop of economic hardship, political disillusionment and Iranian ambivalence toward the West.... Inflation is thought to be running at about 50 percent a year. And while that's down from last year, most Iranians still complain their paychecks are worth less and less. Making ends meet is a far greater concern than international politics. For many, hopes of a better future have faded like the once-colorful revolutionary murals along Tehran's streets. "The Iranian people are like a cigarette butt. The government has put it beneath its foot and pressed," Manucher Rastiger, a 60-year-old retiree, said as he sat in Qeytareh Park in fashionable north Tehran.... On the other hand, authorities in recent months have vigorously enforced Islamic law -- cracking down on dress code violations, public gatherings of young men and women, and private parties where alcohol is served.... "In this country, people only have the right to breathe, nothing else," a 25-year-old who identified himself only as Shuan said as he smoked an American cigarette. "You grew up with hope in America. Here we don't have any hope."...