Iran launches major airborne exercise in wake of mortar attacks in Teheran

NICOSIA -- Iran has launched its largest airborne exercise near the Iraqi border as a state daily said Teheran will not hesitate to develop nuclear weapons that can strike the United States.

Iranian military sources said the Zoulfaqar exercise involves paratroopers landing in several Iranian locations as part of a demonstration of air support for a ground offensive.

An Iranian commander was quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency as saying that hundreds of paratroopers aboard a C-130 Hercules transport plane landed at 120 points at Ilam, Saleh-Abad and Mehran, in western Iran. He said the exercise was to test the capability of air support for ground forces.

The military exercise includes the establishment of 35 stations to monitor communication security in a demonstration of Iranian electronic warfare capability.

IRNA said the four-hour exercise is unprecedented in Iran. The troops will remain in western and southern Iran for the next 15 days.

The exercise came as Iran reeled from a series of mortar attacks on the offices of Iranian leaders in Teheran on Saturday night. The opposition Mujahadeen Khalq said its target was the office of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei was not hurt but a state employee was killed.

"Mujahadeen Khalq's indulgence in blind terrorist acts against defenseless people is a proof of the organization's terroristic and anti-people nature and that the organization has reached the dead end," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.

Iran, which is on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist sponsors, has called for what Asefi termed "a serious, decisive and non-selective approach by the international community and the world countries, particularly those claiming to be fighting terrorism, towards this vicious phenomenon."

Asefi called on the international community to seriously deal with the Mujahadeen Khalq and cooperate in counterterrorism efforts.

In another development, an Iranian daily aligned with Khamenei warned that Teheran will not hesitate to build missiles that can strike the United States. The Kayhan International attacked a CIA report that said Iran has received Russian help to build medium-range missiles.

"If one day Iran decides to have missiles capable of reaching the United States, it will certain do so without hesitation," Kayhan said. "Iran will not show any reluctance in joining the nuclear club the day it deems it necessary to do so."

Kayhan said the CIA report was aimed to divert attention from what the daily termed was the Israeli threat before Iranian parliamentary elections on Feb. 18.