Mortar rounds hit ex-army base in Tehran

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) -- Five mortar rounds struck a former army base in eastern Tehran early Monday, but there were no casualties or damage, Iran's news agency IRNA reported.

It said the rounds landed harmlessly in an open area of the Heshmatieh base, used earlier to house Iraqi prisoners of war.

A spokesman for the Iraq-based Mujahideen Khalq rebel group told Reuters in Dubai by telephone that his movement was responsible for the attack, carried out at 6 a.m. (9:30 p.m. EDT Sunday).

"There have been reports of casualties among the senior officers who work in this compound and ambulances have been seen going into the compound and going out," the spokesman said.

IRNA later said a policeman was killed in a clash in northwestern Tehran late Sunday. It said one "terrorist" was arrested after the clash, in which two other policemen were also injured by a grenade.

It was not immediately clear if the clash and the mortar attack were linked.

The Mujahideen spokesman said the attack was in response to what he called a government crackdown in the western city of Khorramabad, where there have been clashes between reformist students and hard-line Islamic vigilantes.

Three Iranian soldiers were killed in a border area by the rebels, state radio said Sunday. It said dozens of Mujahideen fighters were killed or wounded in weekend skirmishes.

The Mujahideen said at the weekend that its forces had clashed with Iranian units which had crossed the Iraqi border in pursuit of the rebels.

The group said it fired "more than 1,000 rounds of mortar and rockets," killing or wounding "hundreds" of Iranian troops.

The daily Tehran Times said the Mujahideen had attacked three Iranian border towns with mortars.

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