BRIEF ON IRAN Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran No. 538 Wednesday, November 13, 1996 3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007 Tehran Executes Two Kurds, Voice of Iranian Kurdestan, November 10 On October 25 and 26, two members of the [Iranian Kudestan Democratic] Party, Hassan Salteh and Omar Salteh who were brothers, ...were regrettably executed. The two were arrested in 1995 by the anti- Kurd regime of Islamic Republic and were sent to Orumieh prison [in Northwestern Iran]. Cooperation in Suppressing Iranian People, Agence France Presse, November 11 On Monday, IRNA announced that Iran and North Korea have decided to cooperate in security, police training and crime prevention issues.... According to IRNA the agreement [signed in Tehran] specifically considers "technology transfer in areas of preventing crimes, bilateral scientific research and training of security forces of the two countries."... [The NCR issued a statement today and strongly condemned such agreements, as they "only serve stepped up repression, further executions, and torture and massacre of the Iranian people." The NCR called on the government of North Korea to immediately withdraw from the pact and said that the announcement is made only a few days after the U.N. Human Rights Commission's Special Representative reported that the condition of human rights has deteriorated in Iran.] Nouri Calls for Islamicization of University Science Books, Staff, Radio Israel, November 7 Regarding what he described as the necessity for domination of Basiji culture over Iranian universities, the head of Islamic majlis Nateq Nouri —who considers himself the heir apparent to Rafsanjani— called for expulsion of professors and scientific personalities whom he described as anti- religion, corrupt unbelievers.... Nouri, who was speaking in Tehran yesterday, called for changing universities' scientific books and fortification of Hezbollahi forces in Iran's educational centers. The Tentacles of Terror, Time, International Edition, November 11 Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is emphatic: "I categorically reject that anybody in the Iranian government, or with any connections to the Iranian government...would be involved in any kind of [terrorist] activity outside of our territory. The Iranian government has no relation whatsoever to these cases." That blanket denial would be more convincing if the police investigations into dozens of killings had not turned up so many passports, phone numbers, plane tickets and embassy contacts linking suspected and convicted killers directly to Tehran. In fact, Western intelligence services have a fairly clear idea not only of who has pulled the trigger in most of these cases, but how the decisions were made at the top of the Iranian government and carried out on the ground. Says a classified report by Germany's Federal Crime Office "We are dealing with organized criminality at the highest levels." The key group involved in planning and executing terrorist attacks are the Revolutionary Guards, headed by Mohsen Rezaii, and the Intelligence Ministry, headed by Sheikh Ali Fallahian. Targets may be proposed by Fallahian's Ministry, whose agents are planted in embassies around the world, or by a special intelligence section attached to the office of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Proposed operations are then submitted to a National Supreme Security Council for approval. The N.S.S.C. includes about a dozen top leaders, including...Khamenei, Rafsanjani, Rezaii, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, Interior Minister Ali Mohammad Besharati-Jahromi and Defense Minister Mohammad Forusandeh. Once an operation gets the green light, Rafsanjani's office decides whether it should be carried out by Intelligence Ministry or the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, an elite corps commanded by Ahmad Vahidi. Whichever unit gets the nod draws up a detailed logistical plan, drawing on assistance from the Foreign Ministry and other government agencies to provide operatives with passports, visas, airline tickets, money and, of course, weapons, which are usually slipped into the target country via diplomatic pouch.... [Continued on the next BOI]