10 Held in Attack on Official, Iran Says

Police have arrested 10 suspects in the recent assassination attempt on a leader of Iran’s pro-reform movement, Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said Saturday.

Saeed Hajjarian, an ally of President Mohammad Khatami and a key figure in the reformists’ victory in last month’s parliamentary elections, was shot in the face by a gunman on a motorcycle March 12.

Yunesi said none of the suspects are affiliated with the wounded official’s hard-line conservative opponents. “These people do not have any affiliation to any organization or any faction in Iran,” he said.

The Iranian minister’s disclosure of 10 arrests was four more than the authorities had previously declared. He did not give a motive for the attack.

A low-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guards was among those arrested, Yunesi said at a news conference broadcast on state television.

“The suspects are a rogue element with private adventurist motives. It was extremist elements who committed this act,” he said.

Hajjarian, a member of the Tehran City Council and publisher of a leading reformist daily newspaper, is still recovering from the attack.

Yunesi had earlier said that his ministry was looking into a possible role by the Iraqi-based Moujahedeen Khalq, the main armed opposition group in Iran, and foreign agents.

Reformist groups had argued that elements in hard-line security forces might have been behind the attack, as part of their campaign to undermine Khatami’s liberal reforms.

The Islamic Iran Participation Front, run by one of Khatami’s brothers, said Wednesday that hard-liners in a security body were trying to cover up the truth.

Yunesi denied the charges. “The Intelligence Ministry is doing its job without any obstacles. I assure you that we will firmly try to discover the roots of this plot,” he said.

All security organizations, including the Revolutionary Guards, have condemned the attack on Hajjarian.