Word: tehran
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...weapons against Iranian troops and civilians. Meanwhile, with the help of local Kurdish tribesmen, Iran's forces have established a new offensive in the northern part of Iraq, where the Iranians claim to have captured 185 sq. mi. of territory. Correspondent Sam Allis filed this report after visiting both Tehran and the new battle area...
Many of these basij will end up at Beheshteh Zahra, the sprawling martyrs' cemetery south of Tehran, where red water symbolizing martyrs' blood flows from a fountain. Every day bulldozers work at the cemetery, carving out new rectangular plots the size of Olympic swimming pools for those slain in battle. Gravediggers say they fill one with bodies in two weeks. The dead arrive so rapidly that pieces of cardboard, usually stapled with photographs of the fallen, mark burial sites until marble slabs can be put in place. Wives and mothers in chadors, the flowing black robes, move silently through...
Despite the heavy casualties, most Iranians appear to embrace both the war and the changes the Ayatullah Khomeini has introduced since he overthrew the Shah in 1979. One small demonstration for a peace settlement took place in downtown Tehran in early April, but the conflict generally remains a popular, unifying force. On street corners people donate money and jewelry to the war effort, while children drop coins in plastic piggy-type banks shaped like hand grenades. Diplomats estimate that the country is spending as much as $5 billion of its $7 billion annual budget on the war against Iraq. Religion...
When the talk in Tehran is not of the war, it is about Khomeini's successor. The Ayatullah now plays no visible role in public life. By most accounts, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 52, the pragmatic Speaker of the Parliament, is the leading candidate to take over. At this point, it is unclear what impact his alleged role in the U.S.-Iran arms deal will have on the succession. "It's a time bomb ticking away," says one diplomat. While Iran's council of experts designated Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, 64, the senior cleric from Qum, as the formal successor...
...Iranians' trip to Washington followed other unsuccessful attempts to negotiate with Iran, including former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane's trip to Tehran with a planeload of armaments in an effort to gain freedom for U.S. hostages in Lebanon...