The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, General Rahim Safavi, has called on Iraq to take action to curtail the activities of the Iraqi-based opposition group, the Mujahedeen al-Khalq.

He said if Baghdad did not take action, Iran's armed forces would respond strongly.

The warning follows Saturday's mortar attack in Tehran in which one person was killed and five others were injured. The Iranian government has attributed the attack to the Mujahedeen.

The government in Tehran called in the Iraqi Charge d'Affaires to lodge a strong protest at the attack, saying Iraq would be held responsible for allowing members of the group to carry out such attacks.

The Iranians have in the past launched ground and air attacks on Mujahedeen bases inside Iraq.

Khatami survives

Saturday's attack on government buildings in southern Tehran was timed to disrupt the 21st anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution next week.

The Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, was reportedly in the building at the time of the attack but is said to have escaped injury.

Witnesses said other mortar rounds, apparently aimed at nearby government installations, blew out windows and damaged offices.

The attacks came as the country prepares for hotly-contested general elections in which supporters of Mr Khatami, are hoping to win power from the currently predominant conservatives.

'In the pay of the CIA'

Political tension has been rising as polling day nears.

On Monday, nearly 20 reformist Iranian publications called for the prosecution of a leading conservative cleric, Ayatollah Mohammed-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, for suggesting that they were in the pay of the American Central Intelligence Agency.

They described the Ayatollah's remarks as defamatory.

The Ayatollah said last month that the CIA had infiltrated Iran's reformist government and bribed moderate journalists.

His words prompted a cartoonist to portray him as a crocodile, in a Farsi pun on his name.

Hardline response

The drawing in turn led to protests by hardline demonstrators and resulted in the cartoonist, Nik Ahangh-Kosar, being charged by the press court and remanded in custody.

The protests, in the holy city of Qom, south-east of Tehran, by thousands of hardline seminary teachers and students lasted three days.

But the sit-in was called off after the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, thanked the protestors and asked them to stand down because of the sensitivity of the current situation.