Iran Opposition Blamed in Death of Army Official
A high-ranking Iranian army commander was killed Saturday morning while on his way to work, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Brig. Ali Sayyad Shirazi, deputy chief of the joint staff command of the armed forces, was a senior army commander during Iran’s 1980-88 war with Iraq, the agency said. He was assassinated by “terrorists,” a common euphemism for the Iraq-based opposition group Moujahedeen Khalq.
The agency did not say how Shirazi was killed.
The Associated Press in Cairo received a telephone call Saturday from a Moujahedeen Khalq spokesman in Paris, who said the group’s units inside Iran were responsible for the killing.
Spokesman Shahin Gobadi read a statement saying Shirazi was a “war criminal” who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of opposition members. He said he did not yet have details about how Shirazi was killed, only that he was being escorted by heavily armed bodyguards at the time.
The head of Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Rahim Safavi, vowed to avenge Shirazi’s death, the news agency reported.
The Moujahedeen Khalq is working to oust Iran’s clerical regime.
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