Iranian opposition accuses Tehran of killing Kurdish dissident in Iraq

NICOSIA, Aug 6 (AFP) - Agents sent by Tehran have killed a member of the Iranian Kurdish opposition at a base in northern Iraq, Iran's biggest armed opposition faction, the People's Mujahedeen, said Thursday.

Mohammed Heidari of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) was gunned down late last Friday at a party base in Iraq and died the following day, the People's Mujahedeen said in a statement received here.

The group said Heidari's death brought to 28 the number of Iranian dissidents killed abroad by Tehran's agents since moderate President Mohammad Khatami took office in August 1997.

It called for international human rights groups "to condemn this terrorist crime" and "the freedom of action enjoyed by the mullahs' guards corps and intelligence ministry agents in northern Iraq."

The KDPI is not part of the Mujahedeen-led National Council of Resistance of Iran, which maintains large bases in government-held areas of Iraq.

But it maintains bases of its own in areas of northern Iraq held by an Iraqi Kurdish faction, the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Several mainly Kurdish areas of northern Iraq have escaped Baghdad's control since Western governments intervened to prevent it suppressing a Kurdish uprising following the 1991 Gulf War.

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