BRIEF ON IRAN
No. 1299
Monday, January 3, 2000
Representative Office of
The National  Council of Resistance of Iran
Washington, DC


Iranian Resistance Claims Attacks on Security Forces in Honor of Victims of July Students' Upraising

Associated Press, December 26 - Iranian troops and opposition fighters clashed along the Iran-Iraq border, both sides reported Sunday.

In a fax sent to The Associated Press in Cairo, the Mujahedeen said its fighters attacked a Republican Guard barracks in Khuzestan. The group said two of its fighters and many Iranian troops died during the clashes.

The Mujahedeen Khalq seeks the overthrow of Iran's Islamic government. It has more than 30,000 men and women with military training in camps in Iraq near the Iranian border.

Agence France Presse, December 27 - Iran's armed opposition said Monday it had launched more mortar attacks on bases of Tehran's security forces in the western province of Kermanshah.

In statements received by AFP in Nicosia the People's Mujahedeen said that for the first time it had used heavy 120 millimeter mortars seized from government forces earlier in the attacks in the Qasr-e Shirin and Sumar regions.

The Mujahedeen said that six of its "operational units" had struck a command headquarters and barracks, a regional office of the intelligence ministry and a station which jammed the opposition's broadcasts in Qasr-e Shirin.

In Sumar another command headquarters, a "terrorist training center" and an electronic eavesdropping center were reported hit and casualties caused.

On Sunday the Mujahedeen said it had carried out a "large-scale" attack with 82mm mortars on barracks belonging to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards on Saturday night in the southwestern province of Khuzistan.

In a statement received here, the Mujahedeen said a "large number" of Revolutionary Guards had been killed or wounded in the bombardment and in subsequent clashes near the western city of Dezful.

Agence France Presse, December 29 - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said a top officer was killed in an attack by the armed opposition People's Mujahedeen, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

General Mohammad-Jafar Asadi, deputy commander for Guards ground forces, told the Aftab-e-Emrouz paper that Ali Saki was killed when a Mujahedeen fighter tried to throw a grenade during an attack. He did not elaborate.

Iranian military sources had earlier this week confirmed that a solider was killed.
 

Thousands of People Force Mullahs’ Regime to Cancel Public Hanging of Minor, Iran Zamin News Agency, January 2

The mullahs’ regime called off the hanging in public of a 17-year-old boy only moments before it was to be carried out in East Tehran this morning. The action was prompted by officials’ fears that the execution would explode popular anger and lead to widespread protests and clashes.

Iran’s official media had announced previously that Morteza Amini Moqaddam would be hanged in public on Sunday morning on Iranmehr Street in East Tehran. At 5 am this morning, more than 4,000 people gathered on the spot where the execution was to take place. The angry crowd expressed outrage at the hanging of a minor. Young people in the crowd were throwing stones and other projectiles at the Guards.

Moments before the execution was to be carried out, the crowd charged at the crane that the Revolutionary Guards had brought to use in the hanging.

Unable to overcome the anger and fury of the crowd, the regime’s officials finally called off the execution at 6:30 am, under the pretext that the family of the man who was killed had pardoned the minor.
 

Paper Gives Rare Report of Worker Protest, Agence France Presse, December 26

TEHRAN - An Iranian daily on Sunday gave a rare report of a factory protest in northern Iran where some hundred laborers demonstrated to protest non-payment of wages.

The Kayhan paper said workers gathered outside their textile plant in Manzandaran province on the Caspian sea Saturday night to demand immediate payment of their overdue salaries.
 

Court Sentences Two Students to Death, Reuters, December 25

TEHRAN - An Iranian court has sentenced two students to death for their role in a social unrest in Tehran in July, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

Akbar Mohammadi was charged with using petrol bombs during the riots which broke out when police and armed vigilantes attacked students after a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration, the daily Fath said.

Ahmad Batebi was convicted of endangering national security and promoting anti-government propaganda when he displayed a bloody shirt during the riots. Photographs of Batebi holding up the shirt were widely used in Western media.
 

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