U.S. Spy Rings Found, Iran Claims : White House Denies Knowing of Agents in Sensitive Places

Iran’s Parliament Speaker said today that the government has uncovered pro-U.S. spy rings that included agents in “sensitive places” and senior naval officers who betrayed Iranian warship movements.

Thousands of Shia Muslim worshipers chanted “American spies must be executed!” after they listened to Hashemi Rafsanjani’s allegations during a sermon at Tehran University.

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, reporting on the Speaker’s statements, said Rafsanjani alleged that the rings were involved in plots to overthrow the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fundamentalist government and had been operating as far back as the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

No Information on Allegations

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said he had no information on the allegations. “My information is we don’t really know what they’re talking about. They make similar claims every once in a while about American spies when they need a little attention.”

But there is little doubt U.S. intelligence agencies have operatives in Iran, given the Islamic Republic’s deep hostility toward “the Great Satan.”

Rafsanjani’s statements appeared designed to stir up anti-Western sentiment to deflect attention from political problems at home.

He said the agents included “big American spies” who were being interrogated, and he said the arrests had exposed the entire CIA operations in the Middle East.

Some spies were Iranian navy personnel who transmitted intelligence on Iranian deployments to the U.S. Navy “when they were fighting us in the Persian Gulf,” Rafsanjani said.

‘Sophisticated Equipment’

He said the Iranian ship Iran Ajr, shot up and boarded by U.S. forces in the gulf on Sept. 21, 1987, while it was planting mines, was “betrayed by these very people.”

Iranian security agents seized “sophisticated equipment,” including radio transmitters, code books and even invisible ink used “to send messages to the CIA,” he claimed.

Rafsanjani did not say how many people had been arrested because “the Americans should not know how many of them have been trapped. There are too many.” He also did not identify any of the accused naval officers.

Rafsanjani said “God’s decree will be carried out” and the alleged spies would be punished.