MKO vows to kill Iran officials
By Leon Barkho
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, April 15, 1999
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iranian exiles warned Thursday that the assassination
of a top Iranian general was only a prelude to attacks on other senior
officials in Iran.
Farid Soleimani of the Mujahedeen Khalq said his guerrilla group was
prepared for a retaliatory attack from the Iranian armed forces to avenge
the killing of Brig. Gen. Ali Sayyad Shirazi. He said the group was well
equipped with tanks and helicopter gunships.
Shirazi, deputy chief of the joint staff command of the Iranian armed
forces, was gunned down Saturday in front of his home in Tehran by men
dressed as city cleaners. The Mujahedeen Khalq claimed responsibility for
the attack.
``The punishment of Sayyad Shirazi has sent tremors throughout the
mullah's regime and the resistance is determined to step up its attack
on the regime,'' Soleimani told The Associated Press.
He spoke as more than 500 members of the so-called Iran's parliament-in-exile
met in Iraq to discuss ways to overthrow the clerical regime in Tehran.
``We're fully prepared for all eventualities and that includes attacks
by the mullahs' regime,'' Soleimani said.
The presence of the Mujahedeen Khalq on Iraqi territory is a main factor
hindering a rapprochement between Baghdad and Tehran, bitter neighbors
who fought a 1980-88 war.
No exact figures are available on the number of Iranian exiles in Iraq,
but they are said to be operating about a dozen camps in the country.
The Mujahedeen Khalq was part of the opposition that overthrew Iran's
U.S.-backed monarchy in 1979, but the group split with the Islamic government
over disagreements over power-sharing.
The group moved its headquarters and guerrillas to Iraq in 1984 at
the height of the Iraq-Iran war.
Links
