Word: khomeini
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Iran's revolutionary patriarch, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, 87, vowed Monday to dedicate his "worthless life" to fighting the United States. His designated heir, Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, called for total...
...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...
Formed just one year ago by Massoud Rajavi, 40, a longtime foe of Khomeini, and his wife Maryam, the N.L.A. consists of 15,000-to-25,000 fighters, and is backed by the Iraqi regime. Although the Iranians acknowledged their defeat at Mehran, they insisted it had been inflicted by Iraqi troops using chemical weapons. Baghdad denied any involvement in the battle. At week's end, however, Iraq did claim that its forces had recaptured the oil-rich Majnoun islands east of the Tigris River, where Iranian defenders had been entrenched since...
...more potent Khomeini 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...
While Rafsanjani is considered a pragmatist known to want an end to the war, for the moment his rhetoric is as militant as Khomeini's. At a prayer meeting after his appointment as commander in chief, Rafsanjani spoke of the "infallible determination of Iran to pursue the war against Iraq, no matter what the cost...