TEHRAN, Iran -
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.
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