The pattern of executions within Iran has been matched by hundreds of assassinations of the regime's opponents overseas. In many of the killings and attempts, there is evidence of direct involvement by the agents of the regime's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), acting under the shield of diplomatic immunity.

1. State-sponsored terrorism. Because terrorism has been one of the main instruments to advance the mullahs' foreign policy, decisions about terrorist operations have always been made at the highest levels of the regime. Before he died, all decisions were made by Khomeini, who enjoyed the active advice of Khamenei, Rafsanjani, and other leaders.
     In his letter of resignation to Khamenei in September 1988, Prime Minister Mir, Hussein Moussavi unequivocally stated that many terrorist activities were planned and carried out at the order of the highest echelons of the government and without his knowledge. After surrendering to the French Police, a Tunisian national by the name of Lutfi, one of the Iranian regime's terrorist operatives in France, revealed that the 1986 bombings in France had been suggested to Khomeini by Ali Khamenei, the president at the time; Hashemi-Rafsanjani, then the majlis speaker; Mohsen Rafiqdoust, the head of the Foundation of the Deprived (at the time the minister of the Revolutionary Guards Corps); and Muhammad Muhammadi-Rayshahri, the then intelligence minister. The bombings of shops and a cafe killed twelve people and wounded scores more.
     When Khomeini was alive, Rafsanjani acted as the coordinator of the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Islamic Culture and Guidance, and the Guards Corps' units involved in terrorist activities. After Khomeini's death, Rafsanjani, as the country's president and the chair-man of the Supreme National Security Council, has continued to make the final decisions on terrorist plans.
     During the mullahs' fourteen-year rule, unlimited financial resources have been devoted to exporting terrorism. Tehran has also formed specific terrorist organs and institutions, and-as noted in Chapter IX the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has played a key role in sponsoring terrorist activities.
    
2. Religious fanaticism. The Tehran mullahs also exploit religion to legitimize acts of terror by calling them divine duties. The mullahs promise the perpetrators of such actions "a place in heaven." This religious factor generates intense hatred and catastrophic results. Some of the most devastating blows have been delivered through suicide missions. Shedding the blood of innocent people and ordinary citizens is easily justified as "a necessary price." In many cases, public places have been bombed at random - victimizing civilians and even children merely to create fear. The fundamentalists' targets are determined by Tehran's political and propaganda interests.
    
3. Handpicked targets. The Iranian-sponsored terrorism has targeted a wide spectrum of victims during the past decade.

4. Hostage taking. The 444-day occupation of the United States Embassy in Tehran, beginning on November 4, 1979, marked the start of the newly established clerical regime's experimentation with terrorism and provided a glimpse of what was yet to come.
     In 1986, when the departure of an Iranian cargo ship from an Italian port was delayed for a few days because an Iranian sailor had requested political asylum, Tehran retaliated by preventing Italian nationals, including diplomats, from leaving Iran. Rafsanjani had this to say about the incident: "They delayed our ship. We spoke with them with humane language. It was to no avail. Yesterday we ordered several Italians not to leave Iran. [The authorities] returned them from the airport."
     In March 1992, when relations between Berne and Tehran soured over the arrest of a top Iranian terrorist in Switzerland, a Swiss business-man disappeared in Tehran without any trace. Several days later, it became clear that the Swiss national had been taken hostage.
     The tragic saga of the Western hostages held captive by Tehran's proxies in Lebanon was the very essence of Iranian-sponsored terrorism. In the words of Rafsanjani, "If the oppressed people of Lebanon do not take hostages, then what else can they do?" Rafsanjani tried to delay the hostages' release to gain the maximum concessions. Sheikh Muhammad, Hussein Fadhlullah, a Hizbullah leader, acknowledged in March 1991 that holding the Western hostages had become a liability: "If it were left to us, we would release them this very day. But Rafsanjani believes that the Americans are not yet ready to step forward and accept Iran's demands." Consequently, Tehran agreed to the freedom of the Western hostages only when the region's political landscape had been totally reshaped in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
    
5. Hijacking. Another method often employed by the mullahs' regime in recent years has been the hijacking of passenger airliners. In August 1983, an Air France Boeing 737 was commandeered as it left Vienna and forced to go to Tehran. Its cockpit was blown up on the tarmac of Mehrabad Airport by the hijackers. In June 1985, a TWA Boeing 727 was hijacked while en route to Rome from Athens. An American navy diver was murdered while the plane was parked on the tarmac of Beirut Airport. An Air Afrique DC-1O airliner was hijacked in July 1987 by Iranian-backed terrorists who killed a French passenger at the Geneva Airport. The Swiss president revealed in an interview at the time that the government of Iran was responsible for the affair. On April 5, 1988, a Kuwaiti airliner 747 jumbo jet was hijacked in Bangkok and forced to land in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashad. A leading Lebanese terrorist boarded the plane to control the operation. After fifteen days, the episode ended in Algiers, but not before two passengers were murdered by the terrorists.
    
6. Bombings in public places. In September 1986 a wave of bombings shook Paris. Fuad Ali Saleh, accused of killing twelve people and injuring hundreds in these incidents, was arrested while carrying explosives into a car in Paris in March 1987. A student of theology in Qom, Saleh confessed that he had been commissioned by Tehran. Bomb blasts in two beach-side restaurants in Kuwait City in 1985 left ten people dead and eighty wounded. During the 1989 hajj in Mecca, three bombs went off around the Grand Mosque, injuring scores of pilgrims. Terrorist agents who claimed responsibility for the explosions were captured and stated in their confessions several months later that they had been trained by the Iranian regime. In August 1986, a number of Iranian diplomat' terrorists were arrested in Jiddah Airport carrying large quantities of explosives.
    
7. Suicide missions, car and truck bombs. In April 1983, a bomb, laden truck exploded in front of the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 61 and wounding 120 persons. The Emir of Kuwait was wounded in a suicide attack on his motorcade in May 1985 that was linked to Iran. Car bombs were used to assassinate Saudi diplomats in Turkey and Thailand. In March 1992, a powerful bomb exploded in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, destroying the Israeli Embassy. Two months later, a senior official at the U.S. State Department said, "The United States has uncovered strong indications that Iranian diplomats helped plan the March 17 bombing." According to these reports, several other foreign embassies in Latin American countries had been identified for similar terrorist attacks.
     Rafsanjani and other senior Iranian officials have repeatedly and officially accepted the responsibility for terrorist actions by their operatives in Lebanon and elsewhere. Three years after the explosion of the U.S. Marine barracks near Beirut, Rafsanjani said, "They hold us accountable for the blow the Americans received and the humiliation they suffered in Lebanon. We are indeed responsible [for it.]" Brigadier General Mohsen Rafiqdoust, the former Guards Corps minister and Rafsanjani's brother-in-law, stated, "Both the TNT and the ideology which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marine Headquarters had been provided by Iran."
   
 8. Assassinations of foreign nationals and Iranian oppositionists. The most publicized example of the mullahs' terrorism against foreign nationals was Khomeini's decree in 1989 ordering the execution of the Indian-born British author, Salman Rushdie. Despite a wave of international condemnation and appeals to annul the decree, Rafsanjani and other high-ranking officials have stressed its irrevocability. In reply to a question on the subject, Rafsanjani said:
The fact that the entire power of the Arrogant West is defeated in relation to a blasphemous book provides a clear path to materialize the Imam's [Khomeini's] thoughts. The Imam's decree on the execution of Salman Rushdie is the decree of Islam; it remains in force and will be subject to no changes.
     In November 1992, mullah Hassan Sane'i, a top cleric and the head of the state-run Panzdah Khordad Foundation, issued a statement, confirming an increase in the $ 2 million reward for killing Salman Rushdie. In a January 31, 1993, press conference in Tehran, Rafsanjani told foreign journalists, "Nothing can change this [the verdict] because, the leader [Khomeini] is dead..." The following month, Khamenei added, "The Imam [Khomeini] fired an arrow toward this brazen apostate. The arrow has left the bow and is moving toward its target and will sooner or later strike it. This sentence must definitely be carried out and it will be carried out."
     In addition, the mullahs' terrorists have so far set several libraries and bookstores on fire for carrying Rushdie's book. They also wounded the Italian translator of the book and murdered its Japanese translator.
     In March 1990, a famous Turkish journalist working for the daily Hurriyet and his driver were shot and killed in Istanbul. According to Hurriyet, the police concluded that the murderers had received their orders from Iran. An Iranian diplomat named Aqiqi, who is also a member of the Intelligence Ministry, was involved in the murder. He is now working at the Iranian Embassy in Vienna. On January 15, 1992, Mustapha Geha, a Shi'ite Lebanese author who had written anti-Khomeini commentaries in Beirut's newspapers, was murdered in the Sabtiyeh district of Beirut.
     On January 24,1993, Ugur Mumcu, a renowned Turkish journalist, was killed as a powerful bomb exploded in the car he was driving in Istanbul. He was a staunch critic of the mullahs' fundamentalism. In a related development, a prominent Turkish industrialist escaped assassination on January 27, when his bodyguards exchanged gunfire with four armed men who stopped his car as he was driving to work.