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. The former students who carried out the 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. During the long standoff, he was writing and speaking against leftist students, they said. Six former U.S. hostages who saw the president-elect in photos or on television said they believe Ahmadinejad was among the hostage-takers. One said he was interrogated by Ahmadinejad. The White House said Thursday it was taking their statements seriously. President Bush said "many questions" were raised by the allegations. The flap 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.
Leaders of the radical Islamic student group that carried out the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover of the embassy, said Ahmadinejad was not among the hostage-takers. "He was not part of us. He played no role in the seizure," Abbas Abdi, one of six leaders of the group, told The Associated Press. Mohsen Mirdamadi, leader of the students who swept into the embassy, also said Ahmadinejad was not involved. Abdi and Mirdamadi are now leading proponents of reform that would support democratic changes and are at loggerheads with Ahmadinejad. Mohammad Ali Sayed Nejad, a friend of the president-elect, said he and Ahmadinejad unsuccessfully argued in favor of seizing the Soviet Embassy at the time, and Ahmadinejad told colleagues in a recent meeting he opposed targeting the American mission because it would bring international condemnation down on Iran.