Word: beheshti
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...revolution that toppled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi just 31 months ago. Raja'i, 47, and Bahonar, also 47, had been in office for 38 days; their deaths came only two months after a massive explosion that killed about 150 people, including the Ayatullah Seyed Mohammed Beheshti, Iran's second most powerful man, at the headquarters of the ruling Islamic Republic Party...
...Ayatullah Mohammed Beheshti was not a king, but he was the emerging strongman of Iranian politics. He was the nation's Chief Justice, the secretary-general of the ruling Islamic Republican Party and the chief strategist of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's theocratic state. At 52, he was the chief hope of continuity for the Islamic revolution, whose terrifying politics have split Iran into bitter and contending factions...
Precisely because terror on every side has become a way of life in Iran, the I.R.P. had sought to avoid attention-and perhaps attack-by keeping secret a meeting of its leaders last week at their headquarters in south Tehran. It did not succeed. As Beheshti addressed the gathering, a massive explosion ripped apart the entire building. The roof and walls collapsed. Bodies and parts of bodies flew through the air, then were buried under tons of rubble. The noise of the blast carried for miles...
...Beheshti died instantly, and 73 of the 90 people who had gathered to hear him accompanied him in death. They included four Cabinet ministers, six deputy ministers, 27 members of parliament and some of the most influential men of Iran's revolution. Seldom if ever in history had any government been so rent by a single act of terrorism, a successful plot that sent 74 political figures to their deaths. With the blast, and the vengeful events sure to follow, Iran appeared to be lurching dangerously closer to total chaos...
...group had planted demolition charges in the foundation of the party headquarters. According to some reports, the plotters had even managed to gain access to the hall and place a bomb in a trash basket near the podium. At 9:05 p.m. on June 28th, about 15 minutes after Beheshti had begun to speak, the charges went off simultaneously. When the dust and debris had finally settled, a stunned and at first unbelieving count of the bodies began. There were plenty of white cloths in which to bind the wounded; rescuers simply unwound their long turbans...