Tehran – Iran’s new president was a member of the hard-line Islamic student group that seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, but he opposed the takeover – preferring instead to target the Soviet Embassy, friends and former hostage-takers said Thursday.
Former members of the Leaders of the Office of Strengthening Unity, the radical Islamic student group that carried out the Nov. 4, 1979, seizure and held the Americans for 444 days, said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had no role in taking the embassy or guarding the hostages.
In the turbulent early days of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ahmadinejad was more concerned with putting down leftists and communists at universities than striking at Americans, they said. Instead, they said, during the long standoff he was writing and speaking against leftist students.
Six former U.S. hostages who saw the president-elect in photos or on television said they believe Ahmadinejad was among the hostage-takers, including one who said he was interrogated by Ahmadinejad.
The White House said Thursday that it was taking their statements seriously. President Bush said “many questions” were raised by the allegations of the former hostages.
The allegations could add another layer of mistrust between the United States and the former Tehran mayor, who was elected president last week with the backing of some of the most hard-core members of the Islamic regime.
Mohsen Mirdamadi, leader of the students who swept into the embassy, and another leader, Abbas Abdi, told The Associated Press that Ahmadinejad was not involved.
Abdi and Mirdamadi are now leading proponents of reform that would support democratic changes, and they are at loggerheads with Ahmadinejad.
Mohammad Ali Sayed Nejad, a longtime friend of the president-elect, said he and Ahmadinejad – a student at Tehran’s Science and Technical University at the time – were the only members who opposed taking the U.S. Embassy.
“While the bulk of student leaders planned and took part in the seizure of the U.S. den of spies (U.S. Embassy), we two were extremely worried about communist groups,” Sayed Nejad said.
Ahmadinejad told colleagues in a recent meeting that he opposed targeting the American mission because it would bring international condemnation down on Iran.
“I believed that if we did that, the world would swallow us,” he said, according to aide Meisan Rowhani.
Ahmadinejad dropped his opposition to the U.S. Embassy takeover after the revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, expressed support for it, but he never participated, Rowhani said.
The Office of Strengthening Unity was formed before the embassy takeover, and its main goal was to support Khomeini’s bid to impose an Islamic government after the removal of the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
During that period, student supporters of communist parties were in an ideological fight with Islamic groups. Ahmadinejad focused on opposing communism and Marxism, writing articles in student publications and making speeches against the threat of communism, Sayed Nejad said.
The embassy takeover galvanized the Islamic factions, and the embassy became a focal point for Islamic supporters.
Former American hostages Chuck Scott, David Roeder, William J. Daugherty and Don A. Sharer told AP that after seeing Ahmadinejad on television, they were certain he was one of the hostage-takers.
Ex-hostage Kevin Hermening said he reached the same conclusion after looking at photos.
“I can absolutely guarantee you he was not only one of the hostage-takers, he was present at my personal interrogation,” Roeder told AP.
Daugherty and Sharer said they believe Ahmadinejad is shown in two AP photos taken a few days after the embassy was seized.
