BRIEF ON IRAN	 
No. 574	
Thursday, January 16, 1997 

Representative Office of 
The National Council of Resistance of Iran	
Washington, DC 


Iran Blasts Israeli-Palestinian Deal on Hebron, 
Reuters, January 15  
 
	Iranian state radio on Wednesday slammed 
an accord between Palestinian and Israeli leaders to 
extend Arab rule to the West Bank town of Hebron, 
saying it would fail to halt the Palestinians' fight 
against Israel.... 
	Iran, which says Israel has no right to exist, 
has condemned the peace process as a sell-out of 
Palestinian and Arab rights.... 
 
 
Iran Trains Super-Gun on Europe, The Sunday 
Telegraph, January 12 
 
	Security forces have been placed on alert in 
Britain and on the Continent following reports that 
Iran is planning a fresh wave of terrorist attacks 
throughout Europe using purpose-built "super-
mortars".... 
	...The 320mm mortar, which can be 
dismantled and transported in lorries and is 
considerably more powerful than the conventional 
weapon, was used in the Baghdad attack [aimed at the 
headquarters of the People's Mojahedin of Iran, last 
week]. It was fired by a delayed fuse from the back of 
a reinforced lorry parked half a mile from the 
target.... 
	Western intelligence agencies have been 
closely monitoring the activities of suspected Iranian 
terrorist cells in Europe after a prototype of the mortar 
weapon was discovered in an Iranian freighter...on 
docking in Antwerp last year. The shipment was 
bound for Munich.... 
	A team of international intelligence officials, 
including British and US technical experts, studied 
the mortar parts for several months and concluded 
they belonged to an exceptionally powerful weapon 
Iran has developed with terrorist operations in mind. 
American intelligence officials fear the weapon might 
be used to attack US bases in the Middle East.... 
	According to the National Council of 
Resistance of Iran, which has compiled a detailed 
dossier on the super-mortar, 20 sets of the weapon 
have been manufactured in the past six months on the 
orders of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's hardline 
spiritual leader. Mr. Khamenei...ordered the country's 
military experts to manufacture the weapon after more 
conventional operations, such as assassinations and 
car bombings, failed to silence Iran's critics.... 
 
 
Iran's Everyday Terror Blocks Out The West, The 
Journal Of Commerce, Jan. 6 
[Continued form BOI 573] 
 
	...Foreigners quickly learn the difference 
between being followed and being watched by Iran's 
many varieties of police.... 
	There are traffic police and city police, hotel 
security and internal security, plainclothes 
surveillance, diplomatic security, Islamic culture and 
guidance officials, the army, the Islamic 
Revolutionary Guard and a special elite force. Not to 
mention immigration, airport security, customs and 
passport control. A visitor meets them all. 
	Yet, a foreign ministry official raises his 
eyebrows when it is suggested that Iran is a police 
state.... 
	With such a widespread police presence, 
nearly all of Iran's official goals can be accomplished 
through fear, except for those that depend on 
economic development.... 
	...but the familiar pattern of Western selling 
and sourcing will never take place without sweeping 
social change.... 
 
 
"First Troubling Sign" of Iran's Influence in Europe, 
Los Angeles Times, January 15 
 
	The Muslim government of Bosnia gave 
Iranian intelligence agents the identity of an 
undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer 
working in Bosnia, exposing the American spy to the 
threat of an Iranian-backed terrorist attack, according 
to U.S. government sources.... 
	Senior CIA officials involved saw the 
incident, which has never been disclosed publicly, as 
one of the first, troubling signs that Iran had used its 
growing influence in Bosnia to penetrate the Muslim 
government far more extensively than Washington 
had believed. That influence has since been well 
established.... 
	At the time [of the incident in summer of 
1995], the country's security service was under the 
supervision of Bakir Alispahic, Bosnia's interior 
minister, who later was identified publicly by the 
Clinton administration as a critical link between 
Bosnia's government and Iran. U.S. officials now 
assume that Alispahic made the decision to reveal the 
CIA officer's identity.... 
	...administration officials and other sources 
now concede that Alispahic remains an influential 
figure with close ties to Izetbegovic.... 
	Some officials concede that Iranian 
Revolutionary Guard personnel and intelligence 
agents may still be operating out of the large Iranian 
embassy in Sarajevo.... 
 
 
Iran To Give $50 Million To Bosnia, The United 
Press International, January 15   
 
	Iran has agreed to a $50 million aid package 
to be delivered during the 1997 calendar year to 
Bosnia-Herzegovina's reconstruction assistance.... 
	U.S. officials last week reported that Iran had 
"secretly" given $500,000 to Muslim President Alija 
Izetbegovic's election campaign in September....