Five executed after grenade attack

Press, 17 July 1979, Page 8

Five executed after grenade attack

NZPA-Reuter Teheran Five men have been executed in the Gulf port of Khorramshahr for their part in a grenade attack on a local mosque in which six Government supporters died. Arab sources said more executions were expected shortly. The three were shot by firing squad within 12 hour's of the mosque attack, in which 60 people are also reported to have been injured. As tension mounted in Khorramshahr and the surrounding oil-rich Khuzestan province, the governor of the port city resigned and indirectly blamed Iran’s provisional Government for the latest violence.

The governor, Mr Mohammad Alavi, said: “Since the Government has not been able to present a definite policy, my further service to the revolution is not possible.”

Islamic Revolutionary Guard members, whom the local Arab population accuses of protecting the interests of Persians in the city, were yesterday occupying the home of an Arab spiritual leader, Sheikh Taher Shobeir Khaghani.

His brother, Sheikh Izza Khaghani, said in Teheran, that he had no idea of the whereabouts of the 72-year-old clergyman.

Sources in Khorramshahr, the scene of sporadic clashes last week, said local people had been keeping to their homes amid unconfirmed reports that troops had been flown to the nearby oil town of Abadan.

Sheikh Izza Khaghani said he had received information that at least twb other people were being held on charges of involvement in the mosque attack, which was blamed by survivors on Arab guerrillas. He said he expected further executions shortly. Elsewhere in Iran, Kurds were in control of the Western border town of Marivan after bloody clashes on Saturday with Islamic Revolutionary Guard members.

A 100-strong force of airborne Government troops was barricaded in at the nearby Snandaj Airport after heeding calls from a local council delegation not to try to retake Marivan, which lies on the border with Iraq. The Kurds have said they will fight any attempt to retake the town. Khorramshahr has' been the scene of mounting tension since saboteurs claimed responsibility for blowing up oil and gas pipelines as' a protest against Government failure to meet the local minority Arabs’ autonomy demands.

Sheikh Khaghani has consistently described himself as a stabilising force in the region, and last week he cancelled a scheduled trip to London for eye surgery because of the deteriorating crisis.

The families of people killed and injured in the mosque attack gathered at the town’s Mosaddeq Hospital and demanded the immediate arrest of those responsible.

The continued detention of Iranian Arabs is cited by the

minority community as the main reason for tension in the region. Local officials have blamed I the unrest on counter-revolutionaries, and have accused Iraqis of running weapons, including So-viet-made rocket launchers, into the troubled province.

There have been conflicting reports of how the fighting began. The State radio has said it began when 300 armed men attacked 25 Revolutionary Guard members. But Kurdish sources say armed demonstrators fought back when they were fired on by committee members. The demonstration that led to the fighting was to protest against the local committee’s alleged connivance with big feudal landlords attempting to grab the land of local peasant farmers

In a sweeping reversal of the ousted Shah’s policies, the revolutionary Government has slashed defence expenditure by 60 per cent as part of a $"12,000M spending cut envisaged in an emergency Budget. Approval of the 1979-80 Budget by the secret.. Revolutionary Council was expected in two weeks, said the head of the Budget and Planning Organisation (Mr Ali Akbar Moinfar). The $35,000M Budget is balanced. The previous Budget of $47,000M envisaged a deficit of SI4OM. The Budget cut was made through economy and fixing the daily oil exports at 3.3 M barrels in the fiscal year ending next March 20, Mr Moinfar has told a press conference.