Word: islamicism
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Two weeks after the contested results of Iran's presidential elections led to widespread street riots and demonstrations across the country, the Islamic republic pronounced its harshest threat yet to protesters. At the official ceremony for Friday prayers, Ayatullah Ahmad Khatami, a hard-line cleric who often delivers the sermon...
The Basij, or Basijis - the paramilitary volunteer force developed by the Islamic republic to protect the Islamic revolution from civil disturbances like the kind that have occurred these past weeks - have had an overwhelming presence on Tehran's streets, often setting up roadblocks to check cars and detain people they...
Both the Basij and the Revolutionary Guards Corps (or Sepah) were founded in the first year of the Islamic republic in 1979, following a decree by Iran's first Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. "From the start, the Sepah was about building a popular army, one that had the duty...
Over the years, however, certain units among the Basij were trained for state control purposes. In 1999 they appeared prominently as shock troops in quelling urban dissent after student demonstrations that initially sought greater freedom for the press. "Increasingly, Sepah used the Basij as a force for indoctrination and in...
To head off the prospect of Swat falling to Taliban fighters loyal to Maulana Fazlullah, Muhammad's son-in-law, the government tasked Muhammad with urging his former disciple to lay down arms in exchange for the government's implementation of Islamic law in the area. It soon emerged, however...