Word: tehran
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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They were the two most wanted men in Iran, hunted for "high treason" by the vengeful mullahs around Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. When darkness fell on Tehran on July 28, Abolhassan Banisadr, the deposed President, and Massoud Rajavi, his ally and leader of the urban guerrillas known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (People's Crusaders), slipped on stolen military uniforms and sneaked from their hideout into a small army van. They were driven to a military airfield, passing unrecognized through security controls (Banisadr had shaved his familiar mustache), and boarded an Iranian air force Boeing...
...fool the Islamic Guards, Khomeini's vigilantes, the Mujahedin spread rumors that Banisadr was hiding in Kurdistan. Actually, Banisadr spent the entire time in Tehran. He was able to move around the capital, not exactly at will but frequently, sometimes in a small car, sometimes in taxis. He wore no disguises, although he did give up his glasses, and only shaved his mustache for his escape. Occasionally, he was recognized, but no one reported him to the police. Most of the time, however, he traveled without attracting any attention...
...because they supported the Shah," says Ali Shahin Fatimi, editor of an Iranian newsletter in Paris. Other Iranian intellectuals in exile criticize Banisadr's arrogance and political naivete. Says one: "If he could not do anything as President, and if he cannot organize a revolt from within Tehran itself, what can Banisadr possibly do from Paris?" It is a question that the mullahs were also asking themselves last week in Tehran. -By William Drozdiak...
...success of his resistance movement are high because popular opposition to Khomeini's regime is spreading fast. He is convinced that the people no longer honor Khomeini as their religious leader. He notes with pleasure that the Ayatullah tried to mobilize mass demonstrations before the French embassy in Tehran after his escape and managed to muster only 5,000, a pittance compared with the hundreds of thousands who used to turn out. Even more encouraging, he feels, the intelligentsia are siding with the resistance and so are the armed forces. Those who ask why the armed forces...
Banisadr thinks that he was able to hide out successfully in Tehran for so long because of the basic disarray of the government, which prevented it from conducting systematic searches. On July 23, Banisadr tells his supporters, there were 120 bombings in Tehran, and he asks, smiling, how anyone could have had time to hunt...