Mortar Attack Fuels Political Tensions in Iran

A series of mortar shells ripped into northern Tehran on Monday, landing near Iran’s national police headquarters and reportedly injuring six people in an attack claimed by the Moujahedeen Khalq group, which opposes Iran’s Islamic government.

The explosions seemed bound to add another element to the political tensions brewing in Iran. Reformist groups have been trying to maintain a calm atmosphere to bolster beleaguered President Mohammad Khatami, who is under assault from conservative opponents.

The mortar attack came just days before a runoff election Friday that reformers aligned with Khatami hope will increase their majority in a new parliament scheduled to be seated May 28.

But faced with the prospect of losing its majority, the hard-line faction in Iranian politics has been waging a furious counter-assault in which 16 reformist newspapers and magazines have been muzzled by the judiciary over the past two weeks and a number of leading advocates of increased freedoms have been jailed.

Meanwhile, state television carried a taped confession from one of 13 Iranian Jews accused more than a year ago of spying for Israel. In the confession, suspect Hamid Tefilin, a shopkeeper from the southern city of Shiraz, said he received money and training to spy for Israel.

“I accept the charges against me. I spied for Israel,” Tefilin, dressed in gray prison garb, said calmly in the brief confession broadcast during the evening news. He said he was sorry and expressed loyalty to Iran.

There was no way to verify whether the taped statement was sincere or determine whether it had been coerced during the time that he has been in prison and denied access to relatives and defense lawyers. Israel on Monday reiterated that it had no connection with any of the suspects and called the charges against them “ludicrous and barbaric.”

The confession was broadcast to coincide with the second session of the trial of the Jewish suspects in Shiraz. It was the first time since the arrests were revealed more than a year ago that the public has heard any specifics about the charges.

The proceedings against the Jews, which could result in the death penalty, have been controversial from the start. Some foreign diplomats in Iran have suggested that the charges were exaggerated and filed as part of the power struggle between reformers and conservatives--in other words, conservatives may have been trying to embarrass Khatami at a time when he was seeking better relations with Western countries.

Leaders of Iran’s 30,000 Jews have maintained that the suspects are innocent and have said they trust the country’s judicial system to reach a just verdict.

A spokesman for the Moujahedeen Khalq, which maintains bases in Iraq and has carried out bombings and assassinations inside Iran, called news agencies in the Middle East and Europe to claim responsibility for the mortar attack in Tehran.

The Associated Press bureau in Cairo said it was contacted from Paris by Moujahedeen Khalq spokesman Farid Soleimani, who said the headquarters of the State Security Forces had been the intended target.

“Several military units of the Moujahedeen pounded the command headquarters with mortars,” he said.

The Iranian state news agency IRNA said explosions were heard at 8:15 p.m. near Vanak Square, a usually crowded shopping and residential area in northern Tehran. Three mortar shells hit a culture and sports complex in the vicinity, IRNA said. Iranian state television reported five explosions and said at least six people were hurt, one critically.

Security officers closed off the area, and the official Iranian media did not mention in their dispatches that police headquarters may have been the target.

Iranian reformists reject any association with the Moujahedeen Khalq, which they view as extremist, un-Islamic and tainted by its association with Iraq. The group has been hostile to Khatami and his followers, but Soleimani said the attack had been launched “in solidarity” with recent protests by Iranian students against the crackdown on reform newspapers.

Times news services contributed to this report.