Iranian Wounded in Vienna Killings
An Iranian injured in the Vienna killings of three exiled Kurdish activists is an officer of Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards, an Iranian opposition group said Sunday.
The Iraqi-based Moujahedeen identified the man as Mohammed Djafari Sahraroodi, deputy head of the guards’ 15th Corps, based in the west Iran city of Kermanshah, and the officer responsible for liaison with Kurdish groups.
Austrian police said a man with an Iranian diplomatic passport bearing Sahraroodi’s name was shot through the jaw during the killings of Iranian Kurdish opposition leader Abdul Rahman Qassemlou and two other activists last Thursday.
Iran has blamed Iraq for the killings, saying that Qassemlou had been negotiating on an amnesty to return to Iran after last August’s cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War.
Qassemlou, 59, had led Iranian Kurdish separatists for more than 20 years. Iraq and Iran each backed autonomy-seeking Kurdish groups in the other country during their eight-year war.
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