IRAN HELPED IN BURNING U.S. EMBASSY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940078-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 2011
• Sequence Number: 78
• Publication Date: February 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/15 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706940078-4
17 February 1986
LACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ATTA
Iran Helped in Burning U.S. Embassy
vidence stashed away in the vaults of the CIA
suggests t at raman agitators a a e
ro e m an anti- mencan outra a that was
ini[iall i nite vtet sin ormation: the
sac ma an urnma o t e mbasay in
Islamabad by a Pakistani mob on Nov. 21, 1979.
e mo a n wor o a renzy y ra ~o
reports that falsely charged the United States with
instigating the takeover of the Grand Mosque in
Mecca the day before. Descending on the embassy
compound in buses, the rioters forced more than
100 U.S. and Pakistani personnel to take refuge in
a room-sized security vault. They huddled there in
suffocating heat, amid smoke and tear gas fumes
for five hours, while the chancery building burned
around them.
Two Americans died in the melee: a 20-year-old
Marine guard killed by sniper fire and a 30-year-old
Army chief warrant officer, who was trapped in his
burning apartment.
As we have reported previously, secret CIA
reports indicate t at ism ormat~on specialists
were res ns~ a or e m amma ory repor a
tl~nited States an srae engmeere t e
seizes tTieZran osque. I e a sur r rt
was broadcast during a soccer match and was
widely believed despite immediate U.S. denials.
It now appears that the Iranians played a crucial
part in the Islamabad embassy attack. Part of the
Iranian effort was public; part was secret.
r1t the time of the attack-about two weeks after
the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran-Iranian officials openly accused the
United States of complicity in the mosque seizure
by religious extremists.
Intelli ence re its from Pakista '
fol owing t e embass sackin im licated a cadre of
ran~an a stators w o mcit th
v~rtua v the mob to the embassv.
Five years later 'n Dece her 1984, the cra
found another iece of the uzzle Burin a routine
rye m o ar es , an ency or
International Devel ment em o e w o ad
survived a Kuwaiti airliner itac a. wo D
colleagues were brutally murdered by the hijackers.
and Kapar and an American businessman were
systematically tortured before being released at the
Tehran airport.
During their six-day ordeal, Kapar realized that
two Iranian passengers were acting as spies for the
hijackers, relaying any hints of passenger
resistance. And Kapar was sure he had seen one of
the Iranians before, though he couldn't remember
where at first.
Before his sub vent debriefin b the CIA,
Ka r realized the Iranian a n m t e mo that
stormed the em assv in Islamabad in 1979. As luck
would have it, Kapar had been among 16
Americans at AID headquarters who escaped the
rampaging Pakistani mob. He was sure the Iranian
passenger on the Kuwaiti airliner had been part of
the mob, which swung by the AID building in buse,
before attacking the embassy.
With incredible luck, Kapar apparently crossed
paths with the Iranian agent provocateur twice, and
lived to tell the tale.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/15 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706940078-4