Iranian accused in killing of Kurds

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VIENNA, Austria -- Iran's newly elected president, already accused of taking American diplomats hostage 26 years ago, played a key role in the 1989 execution-style slayings of a Kurdish opposition leader and two associates in Vienna, an exiled Iranian dissident said yesterday.

Austria's daily Der Standard quoted a prominent Austrian politician as saying authorities have "very convincing" evidence linking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the attacks in Vienna, in which the Kurds were killed.

The reports follow recent accusations from some of the 52 Americans who were held hostage for 444 days in Iran beginning in 1979 that Mr. Ahmadinejad, a hard-line Islamist, was among the hostage-takers.

Neither Mr. Ahmadinejad nor his aides could be reached yesterday for comment on the claims about the Vienna killings, but the president-elect on Friday denied a role in the hostage-taking.

"It is not true," Mr. Ahmadinejad said. "It is only rumors."

Alireza Jafarzadeh, who runs Strategic Policy Consulting, a Washington-based think tank focusing on Iran and Iraq, said Mr. Ahmadinejad was a Revolutionary Guard commander who supplied the weapons used to gun down Iranian Kurdish politician Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou and two colleagues on July 13, 1989, in Vienna.

Mr. Jafarzadeh is a former U.S. representative for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The council is the political arm of the Mojahedin Khalq, a group that Washington and the European Union list as a terrorist organization.

Mr. Ghassemlou, the principal target, was secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. His delegation had been in Vienna for secret talks with envoys from the Tehran regime.

Mr. Jafarzadeh said his assessment was based on Iranian government sources "who have provided accurate information in the past." He said Mr. Ahmadinejad helped organize the Vienna attack while serving in the Revolutionary Guard's Ramazan garrison near the western Iranian city of Kermanshah.

"While he was there, he became involved in terrorist operations abroad, and he led many, many operations," Mr. Jafarzadeh said.