Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRmUNE, MONDAY,APRIL 14, 1997
V-U-onn Won't Escalate eign nbni_. Ali
I
Ath..-:::=-.:l:::"of"}.:;f
D4 Velar.ab, that Germans IDIr-lranians from Germany, bave
· W. h 1l hr an will come to.no hllfI!l..The exactly mirrored Bonn's ac-
Dispute It e , an ~m,tan. Foreign MIDIStry tions, and bave not gone any
saId It sbll planned to reopen further.
Relders
BONN - Bonn made
clear on Sunday that it would
seek to avoid stoking a dispute
with Iran ;CiWP.t ..a çOUJt
ruling that Tèi1ratlo;dered
political killings in Germany,
despite a march on its embassy
by thousands of Irani-.
ans.
Foreign Minister Klaus
~nkel told the weekly Weit
am Sonntag in his.fll'St com-
ment on the CriSISthat Iraa !be embassy on Monday. It Iranian leaders while atmu~t
show respect for inter-4 has been cl~sed since before tacking Bonn an4 rejecting
nab0lllll: law before Bo~ !he court rulmg Thursday. the court verdict, bave also
could discuss a fresh ,start ID Bonn officials say made clear in their comments
relations. ,.' .' _ privately that Iran has that Bonn need not fear a
But he added, "We do.not llign~ed italso d~ not wish complete freeze in relations.
w~t .an end. to relatlon~ ro. ralse .. e temperature ~ the President Hashemi Rafsanwhich
have eXisted for over diplomatiC standoff With a jani called the dispute a
100 years and, as upset as we country that until recently "passing storm."
are, we do not wantto pour oil was it9 biggest trading partner Mr. Kinkel himself has
on the flames." . . and friend ~ the West. come under pressure for dog-
Bonn has .gone out of Its They ~lDt to the fact that gedly maintaining ties with
w,ay to say, ,It trusts..the as- Iran: s diplomatic. steps, in- Iran despite strong suspicions
SlJJ'8llcesof the Iranian for- eluding the ordering out of of state terrorism.
-'"
e • • •
r Top Iranian
Linked to
Blast at U.S.
Garrison
Intelligence Officer
Said to Have Met
Key Saudi Suspect
By David B. Ottaway
and Brian Duffy
Washing/Oil Pos/ Sen'iet
WASHINGTON - American and
Saudi intelligence authori,ties have
linked a senior Iranian government official
to a grou\>of Shiite Muslims suspected
ofbomblDg an American military
compound in Saudi Arabi!l last. year,
aCcording to U.S. and Saudi offiCiais.
Intelligence info~tion ind~cates~t
Brigadier Ahmad Shenfi, a semor ~I~
intelligence officer and a top offiCial ID
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, met
roughly two years before the bombi~g
with a Saudi Shiite arrested March 18 ID
Canada, the officials said. The man, Hani
Abdel Rahim Sayegh, had fled Saudi
Arabia shortly after the June 25 bombing
that killed 19 American servicemen and
wounded mo~ than 500 others, accord-
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRmUNE, MONDAY,APRIL 14, 1997
ing to Canadian court recordS.
If the report proves to be true, the
United States should consider attacks on
"certain very high-value targets in Iran,
" Newt Gingrich, the Republican
House speaker, said on Fox television.
Mr. Sayegh, 28, has been identified
by Canadian authorities as "a direct
participant" in the truck bomb explosion
at the Khobar Towers complex.
Canadian court documents identify Mr.
Sayegh as a member of Saudi Hezbollah,
an Iranian-backed group of militant
Shiite Muslims.
The iittelligence tying Brigadier Sherifi
to Mr. Sayegh has persuaded a growing
number of officials in Washington and
Riyadh of Iran's direct involvement in
the attack, American and Saudi officials
said. "Iran was the organizing foree behind
it," a U.S. official said.
But several other American officials,
noting the difficulty in. assessing the
fragmentary evic1ehct )lvailable, said
they had yet to be fU'J'ftlypersuaded of
Tehran's role.
If Iran, which has denied all complicity,
is proven to have been involved
10 the attack, the Clinton administration
could come under pressure to retaliate
militarily oreconomically. The United
States reg~dsIran as the world's foremost
sponsor of international terrorism,
through its agents and through the undergroundaction
wing of Hezbollah,
based in the Bekaa, the valley in eastern.
Lebanon.
The Lebanese Shiite political and social
movement, which Iranian agents
helped found in the early 1980s, has
spawned Iranian-fostered replicas in
other Arab' countries with their own
under$l'0und operatives such as those in
Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The evidence of Iranian links to the
Saudi Shiites suspected in the Khobar
borobing includes bank checks signed,
by Brigadier Sherifi, according to Saudi
sources. It is unclear whether the checks
were ~iven to Mr. Sayegh or other suspects
10 the attack.
Canadian and Saudi intelligence
agencies have collected much of their
information about Mr. Sayegh's alleged
role in the bombing, as well as his links
to Iranian authorities. from intercepts of
telephone calls to his wife and family in
Orleans, Miami, Pittsburgh and
Seattle.
Army officials argue that only
cities give troops the chance to
work on real-life challenges,
such as using night-vision equip~
ment in,part1y litareas, avoiding.
power lines and dropping troO~
quickly enough to go virtually
unnoticed by the citizenry.
It is safer for the troops tô
descend in secret than to alert
residents and risk the sightsee.:j
ing crowds that would gather,
said an army official, who added:
"And they don 't want their
equipment photographed. They
don 't want their tactics, oper..,
ations and procedures known."
"I can't imagine there isn't
an American around who
wouldn 't want these guys to be
as good as they can be, " said an
army spokesman, Lieutenant
Colonel Ray Whitehead. "This
is real serious stuff."
But in cityaftercity, the exercises
have drawn fire from
frightened residents who are noL
'told beforehand that the several
roaring helicopters flying in
circles several hundred feet
'overhead late at night -
blacked out except for one that
keeps on its tin:y red taillight for
safety - are trylOg to get as close
as possible to the buildings they
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