Moujahedeen Mount Raids From Iraq : Iran Rebels Say They’re Hurting Khomeini, but Some See Only P.R.

The guerrilla commander, a former Tehran University professor, jabbed his pointer expertly at the war table and said: “We’re taking the war to Khomeini, and we’re hurting him.”

Ibrahim Zakiri, 43, is a top commander in the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA), which was formed last June. About one-third of the army’s members are women, but they have not yet gone into battle.

It is built around the Moujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Warriors, who helped Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrow the shah and were ousted by his fundamentalists along with other liberal and leftist allies.

“Our goal is a popular uprising that will get rid of Khomeini and his mullahs,” Zakiri said.

“We began with hit-and-run attacks on small positions more than a year ago. Now we’re carrying out brigade-size assaults all along the border from Kurdistan in the north to Khuzestan in the south.”

The guerrilla campaign has been overshadowed by the Iran-Iraq war, now more than seven years old. Claims by the NLA that it has killed or wounded 9,000 Iranian soldiers and captured 900 on 100 raids into Iran at a cost of only several score casualties of its own have been met by skepticism.

Public Relations Campaign

In the past, the NLA has been known only through the claims in its communiques. Now it has decided to become more public, seeking to establish itself as a viable military force.

Zakiri’s headquarters base is near the Iranian border in northeastern Iraq, and it has a fighting complement of about 600 men and women. He commands several battalions in six other bases from which Zakiri said the NLA mounts attacks into western Iran.

He said the NLA has four other operational sectors to the south along the 730-mile border.

Rebel officials would not disclose the size of their fighting force, and outside estimates range from from 2,000 to 15,000. Zakiri claimed 3,000 Iranian army defectors have bolstered the ranks, including scores of the 900 prisoners they have taken over the last year.

Mohammed Mohaddessin, 34, one of NLA leader Massoud Rajavi’s closest political advisers, said in an interview that desertions from Khomeini’s forces are growing. Rajavi, 40, leads the Moujahedeen Khalq and formed the guerrilla army.

“The regime is also one of our best sources of weapons,” he said. “We’ve captured thousands of weapons, from small arms to heavy caliber weapons, including a tank.”

The Moujahedeen, founded 22 years ago, joined Khomeini’s revolution to bring down Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in February, 1979, but the fundamentalist mullahs got rid of liberal and leftist allies.

Soon the Moujahedeen were in action again, assassinating leaders of the new Islamic republic. Rajavi fled to France in 1981, but he and his followers were ordered out in June, 1986 and went to Iraq.

Exaggerated Claims

Western military analysts and diplomats in Baghdad say guerrilla battle claims are exaggerated. A diplomat who served in Tehran for several years, speaking privately, described NLA forays into Iran as “little more than pinpricks.”

“They have a very slick public relations machine that has clearly impressed people in the United States and Europe,” he said, but he added:

“It’s doubtful if they’re able to mount brigade-size operations involving hundreds of men. They do mount fighting patrols of maybe 15 men at a time inside Iran, but I can’t see them doing much more than carry out the odd ambush or small-scale attack.”

Iraqi military sources say NLA units run regular patrols inside Iran lasting several days and make sizable raids from which they return through Iraqi lines with prisoners and captured equipment.

Khomeini’s regime has acknowledged recently that the NLA is a problem. President Ali Khamanei said last September that “counterrevolutionaries” had killed 1,200 people, and communiques from Tehran have reported several border clashes.

Zakiri commanded what the NLA calls its biggest operation, a 36-hour battle Nov. 22-23 with the Iranian army’s 64th Division at Piranshahr, in northwest Iran.

He said 3,030 government soldiers were killed or wounded and 310 captured, and 10 tanks and 100 other vehicles were knocked out. The NLA claimed losses of only 18 killed and 50 wounded.

According to Zakiri’s account, his forces marched seven hours to get behind the enemy. He said the rebels attacked at night, as the 64th Division was preparing to launch a drive toward a chain of Iraqi peaks in the Haj Omran sector.

Tehran radio reported at the time that Iranian forces encountered monafeqin , Persian for hypocrites and a pun on moujahedeen , in the Piranshahr region and that some fighting took place.

It was not possible to judge the NLA’s fighting abilities during the visit, but the battalion at Zakiri’s headquarters in a former Iraqi fort appeared well disciplined and highly motivated.

Fighters were dressed in olive green fatigues, without symbols of rank, and carried weapons made in both the Soviet Bloc and the West. They did not salute officers, but stiffened to attention when one passed.

Rebel ranks paraded twice a day before giant portraits of Rajavi and his third wife, Mariam, the Moujahedeen’s co-leader, and the Iranian and NLA flags. They chanted “Death to Khomeini! Long Live Rajavi!”

Photographs of Rajavi and Mariam were everywhere.

Anti-Aircraft Protection

Zakiri’s base is protected by Soviet-made anti-aircraft guns on the roof of the rectangular building containing an armory, mess halls and other facilities that surrounds an inner compound.

One large hall was filled with weapons that the commander said were captured at Piranshahr. There were scores of mortars, anti-aircraft guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons, all bearing Iranian government markings.

Spacious barracks have two-tier bunks and television sets. In a workshop, women made scale models of Iranian military sectors.

Many diplomats believe Rajavi, sole survivor of the original Moujahedeen leadership, won’t get the popular support in Iran he seeks because of his identification with Iraq.

“How can you expect the mass of Iranians to follow someone who is allied with the people who kill their sons and brothers and bomb their homes?” one asked.

The Reagan Administration publicly characterizes the Moujahedeen as Marxists and has kept the movement, which has offices in Washington, at arm’s length.

A U.S. diplomat in Baghdad said: “During the shah’s days, these are the guys that were killing American military advisers in Iran. It’s hard to forget that, even if they are fighting Khomeini now.”