Word: ayatullah
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Iranian leaders took turns denouncing the misdeeds of the "arch-Satan" America. President Seyed Ali Khamene'i called the downing of the aircraft "one of the biggest crimes of the war," while Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, designated successor to Spiritual Leader Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, advocated sabotage "on American financial, political and military targets everywhere." Khomeini urged his people to "go to the war fronts and fight against America and its lackeys." Both Khamene'i and Khomeini, however, seemed just as intent on redoubling efforts against Iraq as denouncing America...
...fanatical legions of the Ayatullah Khomeini suffered another embarrassing defeat last week, this one apparently inflicted by their countrymen. In a cross-border strike from their base in Iraq, the National Liberation Army of the People's Mujahedin, a leftist Iranian dissident group, seized the border town of Mehran and drove its pro-Khomeini defenders beyond the surrounding hills. N.L.A. spokesmen claimed to have killed and wounded as many as 8,000 Iranian troops during the ten-hour battle, code-named Operation Forty Stars. Western reporters brought to the battle scene confirmed that the rebels had captured 1,500 Iranian...
...nearly eight years of war with Iraq, Iran suddenly finds itself on the defensive, forced to regroup and rebuild after decisive defeats at the hands of the Iraqi army. The battlefield losses in turn have increased tensions between radical and moderate factions among the ruling mullahs and led the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini to bestow his title of commander in chief to Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful Speaker of Parliament...
...loyalists is Rafsanjani, 53, who last week was re-elected Speaker of Parliament. That post, combined with his new designation as commander in chief, makes him the most powerful leader below Khomeini. Because he does not have the necessary religious credentials, Rafsanjani will never be able to inherit the Ayatullah's mantle. He may instead be content to serve as the power behind the throne of Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini's designated successor as spiritual leader. But by assuming his new military duties Rafsanjani also risks becoming a scapegoat for future Iranian defeats...
...leader of the only opposition party tolerated in Iran, former Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan is one of a handful of political figures allowed to voice mild criticism in public of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Bazargan has usually exercised the privilege with restraint. But last week Iranian exiles in Paris distributed copies of an open letter to Khomeini, said to have been written by Bazargan, in which the Ayatullah was accused of having created a "despotism worthy of the pharaohs...