The Prez and the Hit Squad

Amir Taheri, New York Post:

THE winner in Iran's recent presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, makes no secret that he is a professional revolutionary, having spent all his adult years in the service of the Khomeinist movement. But was he the chief interrogator of American diplomats held hostage during the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979-80? And was he involved in the assassination of three dissident Kurdish leaders in Vienna in 1989?

On the basis of much research, it is almost certain that Ahmadinejad was not directly involved in the embassy episode. But it is equally clear that he was present when the three Kurdish leaders were gunned down in a hit ordered from Tehran.

The allegation that Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-holders at the U.S. Embassy is based on an Associated Press photo unearthed and published hours after the election on a Web site supporting his opponent. In it, a bearded youth holding the arm of a blindfolded American is identified as Ahmadinejad. But it is not: The man in the photo has almost slanted eyes, with eyebrows that point upwards. Ahmadinejad, however, has almond eyes with almost drooping eyebrows.

And the man in the photo has been identified as Jaafar Zaker, one of the student leaders during the embassy raid. Zaker's younger brother Mohsen told journalists in Tehran that he recognized his brother, who died in the Iran-Iraq war in 1984.

That Ahmadinejad was not personally involved in the hostages drama is also borne out by his denials.

After all, it is almost certain that if Ahmadinejad had been involved he would have trumpeted the fact as part of his "glorious" Khomeinist background. Instead, he has always said that he was opposed to the embassy raid because he saw it as a manoeuvre by the pro-Soviet left to provoke a clash with the U.S. and force the new regime into Moscow's arms.

The occupied U.S. Embassy in Tehran was a seeding ground for a new generation of radicals thirsting for action to gain revolutionary credentials. Of the 400 or so students involved, nearly half died in the eight-year war against Iraq. The rest had differing fortunes. A few dozen (including Ali Ranjbaran, who has been identified as the second youth in the photo) were executed after being linked with leftist groups. Some lapsed into an eclipse produced by disillusionment, or joined the regime's loyal opposition.

Others, however, used the "line on their resume" to claim senior posts in the new regime. Maasumeh Ebtekar, the group's spokeswoman (code-named "Sister Mary"), became assistant to the president for Environmental Affairs under Muhammad Khatami. Reza Sheikh al-Islam — known to the hostages as "the tooth" and regarded as their most vicious captor — became deputy foreign minister and Ambassador to Syria. Muhammad-Reza Khatami, a brother of President Khatami, became a vice-speaker of the parliament. Javad Zarif became ambassador to the United Nations. The remaining "students" occupy high places in the Khomeinist nomenklatura.

And they all assert that Ahmadinejad, though on the Central Committee of the "Office of Consolidating Student Unity" (OCSU), was not personally involved in the holding of the hostages.

In a sense, however, Ahmadinejad shares the guilt if only as a member of the 50-man OCSU central committee. But by that yardstick, the entire Khomeinist leadership is also responsible — they all endorsed the embassy attack. Ahmadinejad's rival in the election, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was as supportive of the raid as anyone.

Ahmadinejad's presence at the killing of the Kurdish leaders in Vienna on July 13, 1989, however, is an established fact. He was wounded in the shoot-out and spent a day in a Vienna hospital before being whisked out of Austria with a diplomatic passport. READ MORE

The meeting had been negotiated when Ali Khamenei (now Iran's "supreme guide") was president of the Islamic Republic. Ahamadinejad was one of two emissaries Khamenei chose to meet the Kurds and invite them to return home and work within the framework of the Islamic Republic.

The Kurdish team was led by Abdulrahman Ghassemlou, Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPIK), who was killed in the attack along with two of the other three members (Abdullah Qaderi-Azar and Fazel Rassuli). The fourth, Sadeq Sharafkandi, escaped — only to be murdered three years later in Berlin by another hit squad, this time sent by Rafsanjani.

The meeting was held in a hotel room in Vienna — and the Kurds secretly taped the proceedings. Just days after the tragedy, I was able to listen to some of the three tapes, courtesy of a close associate of Ghassemlou.

My notes of the time show that Ahmadinejad was the key negotiator from Tehran. One particularly interesting segment is a debate between Ghassemlou and Ahmadinejad. The Kurdish leader demands that the Islamic Republic accept the principle of Kurdish autonomy before his party can return to Iran and work within the regime.

Ahmadinejad starts his reply with convoluted references to the "principles of pure Islamic rule" as set out by Ali Ibn Abitalib, the fourth Caliph, and concludes that there could be no autonomy in Islam since all Muslims must live under the same "divine authority." He then makes an oblique reference to Ghassemlou and his party's collaboration with Saddam Hussein during Iraq's war against Iran, implying that the Kurdish leaders should be glad to be allowed home without facing charges of high treason. He also warns Ghassemlou to be on guard against Soviet attempts to incite Iranian minorities to secession.

The third tape ends with the sound of shots as if fired by handguns plus cries of confusion by the victims. Ahmadinejad's voice can also be heard shouting: "That way, that way!" presumably, warning the attackers not to shoot him by mistake.

Did Ahmadinejad know about the plot, or did he go to Vienna believing that he was to negotiate Ghassemlou's return to Iran? There is no satisfactory answer.

The Kurds and Ahmadinejad's opponents claim that he was the effective head of the hit squad. But then why was he shot and abandoned as the gunmen fled? It was the Austrian police that took Ahmadinejad and a wounded Kurd to hospital. Had the decision-makers in Tehran decided to kill Ahmadinejad to leave no witnesses?

These are questions that only the new president-elect can answer. In the meantime, it would be interesting if the DPIK were to publish all its tapes from that fateful day in the summer of 1989.

Amir Taheri was the editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important Iranian daily in the time of the shah. He is a member of Benador Associates.