Word: khomeini
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...gentle into that good night. The funeral of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini ignited an emotional outpouring from his fanatical followers that Westerners found as bizarre, frightening -- and ultimately incomprehensible -- as the passions he stirred during ten turbulent years as leader of Iran. Even after his burial, Khomeini excoriated his enemies in the outside world, raging in his will against "the atheist East" and "the infidel West," branding Jordan's King Hussein a "criminal tramp," accusing the leaders of Egypt and Morocco of "treason," and denouncing the U.S. as an "inborn terrorist" organization...
While the Ayatullah's body lay in state inside a refrigerated glass box, the crowd of mourners in Tehran became so thick that eight were reportedly crushed to death. The next day, as a helicopter brought the open wooden coffin containing Khomeini's remains to the city's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, nearly a million mourners thrust forward in the blistering heat and choking dust, many wailing and pounding their heads as they groped to touch the body and snatch a piece of the linen burial shroud...
...Khomeini's ability to hold together the squabbling factions that produced Iran's revolution was one of his major achievements. After first setting the direction of the nation through proclamations and statements, Khomeini left it to his followers to forge specific policies. Still, he remained the pivotal figure of Iranian politics, even toward the end, when his various illnesses made it impossible for him to follow events closely. The dismissal of Montazeri, in the opinion of many experts, put increased power in the hands of the pragmatic Rafsanjani, who is also Commander in Chief of the Iranian armed forces...
Wylie, 41, is a peevish Manhattan literary agent whose most famous client is Salman Rushdie. It was Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, that prompted the Ayatullah Khomeini to order his execution. The Wylie-Rushdie pairing is apt: if only one of them is an agent, both are provocateurs. At a time when many agents have turned mercenary, Wylie tops them all in aggressiveness and acerbity. Says he: "This little East Hampton approach to publishing, where publishers and agents share summer houses so that they can get together and shaft the writers, has gone by the board -- I'd like...
...wounded as the military acts to quash the democracy movement. -- Jeers turn to cheers as President Bush seizes the initiative in the East-West dialogue by proposing sweeping conventional-arms cuts in Europe. -- In the U.S.S.R., parliamentary passions erupt in the Congress of People's Deputies. -- Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini dies at 89. See WORLD...