This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/730
Iranians blame "Zionists" for Mahmoud's Ahmajinejab's role as hostage taker, and killer of Kurds
July 3, 2005
Iranian Bijan Adibi, a former hostage-taker points to a photo on screen which shows a U.S hostage and an Iranian during the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, on Thursday 30, 2005. Adibi, said new president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 'was not involved. [AP]
MIM: The sincerity emanating from the eyes of a terrorist and hostage taker who is asserting that the Iranian president elect "had no part in the seizure of the US embassy, is almost enough to incline one to breathe a sigh of relief that they are not pursuing an attempt to manufacture a nuclear weapon either.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=73685
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US not surprised if Ahmedinejad was part of '79 siege | ||||
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REUTERS | ||||
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WASHINGTON, JULY 1 It would not be a surprise to the United States if Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was involved in the 1979 siege of the US Embassy in Tehran, although no solid evidence has been found, the White House said on Friday. Several Americans who were held hostage then, said they recognised Ahmadinejad as a ringleader. But two Iranians who were leading figures in the storming of the embassy said he did not take part. ‘‘We continue to look into it to establish the facts. I don't think it should be surprising if it turns out to be true. This is a regime run by an unelected few that only allowed its handpicked candidates to run in an election well short of free and fair," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. The 48-year-old hardline Tehran Mayor was elected President in a landslide a week ago. Involvement by the new Iranian leader in the 1979-1981 hostage crisis would send a chill through the US Government, which has not resumed diplomatic relations with Iran. Fifty-two Americans were held captive for 444 days during the siege. | ||||
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Dont fall for Ahmajinejad slur campaign Iran says.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran urged European politicians and media on Sunday not to fall for a slur campaign that accuses president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of being a hostage-taker and aiding state-sponsored murders.
Ahmadinejad has denied he was involved in storming the U.S. embassy in Tehran and holding 52 hostages for 444 days in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution. His denials are supported by leading hostage-takers.
One of the president-elect's aides also dismissed an accusation from an outspoken Austrian lawmaker and an opposition group that Ahmadinejad was involved in the killings of three Kurdish activists in Vienna in 1989.
"The charges are so self-evidently false they are not worthy of response," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"We advise the Europeans not to fall into the trap of the Zionist media and to separate their interests from America and the Zionist entity," he said.
Iran regards The United States and Israel as its implacable arch-enemies.
The European Union has tried engaging with Iran to strike a compromise over a nuclear fuel programme that Washington says is being used for warheads. Tehran denies the charge.
"The enemy has created these allegations to mask the high turnout in elections," Asefi said.
Ahmadinejad, a former hardline Revolutionary Guard, was elected by a landslide majority last month, winning some 62 percent of votes cast on turnout of some 60 percent.
His candidacy appealed to the poor who viewed him as the candidate who would distribute Iran's abundant oil wealth more directly to them.
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Iran Hostage taking allegations sheer lies
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-07/03/content_3170196.htm
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TEHRAN, July 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Sunday vehemently rejected a recent allegation that its President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was involved in the 1979 US hostage taking, terming it as "sheer lies",the official IRNA news agency reported. In November 1979, five months after Iran's Islamic Revolution, a group of students, self-proclaimed to be members of "Students Following the Path of Imam", took over the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 staff hostage for 444 days. The incident led Washington to break ties with Tehran in 1980. In a recent interview with the Washington Times newspaper, several former American hostages said they remembered Ahmadinejad, who won Iran's presidential election on June 24, took part in the hostage-taking. Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said that such accusations are "sheer lies, unfounded and baseless". "The Zionist and US circles adopted a false approach towards Iran's presidential election even before the polling and sometimes such a false approach was intensified," Asefi said. Ahmadinejad's assistant has dismissed the allegation, saying he was a member of the hard-line Islamic student group, but he opposed taking hostages. On Friday, several leading hostage-takers also denied Ahmadinejad's role in the incident. Abdolhossein Rouholamini, one of the hostage-takers, said no student from University of Science and Technology, at which Ahmadinejad was studying at that time, participated in the hostage-taking. "The hostage-takers were the students from Tehran University, Sharif University of Technology, Polytechnic University and National University," Rouholamini stressed. |
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/730
