posted January 23, 2001 08:41               

The official news agency IRNA said four shells were fired but caused no casualties or damage.

State television, meanwhile, reported that two shells hit a road close to the Central Islamic Revolutionary Court in the Motaheri district, where a number of government buildings are located.

In a statement sent to AFP in Nicosia, the armed opposition People's Mujahadeen said it had launched rocket-propelled grenades, not mortar shells, on the revolutionary court and the revolutionary prosecutor's headquarters.

It said the attack was "carried out in response to the recent wave of executions in Tehran and the brutal sentences passed on young people by the mullahs' criminal judiciary, which have aroused the wrath and hatred of the Iranian people against the ruling religious dictatorship."