Iranian Regime’s Heavyweight Gunned Down
The killing of a senior figure in Iran's regime, the third in two months, is again downplayed by the country's authorities. PJM special correspondent Ardeshir Arian explores the implications.
Rasa News Agency, which belongs to the religious school of Qum -the mullah’s Vatican in Iran- reports that a group of unidentified gunmen shot and killed Hesham Saymary of the Alavi section in Ahavz, southern Iran, an area where many Iranian Arabs live. The incident took place last Sunday night at about 10:00 PM local time.
According to the information, gunmen were outside Saymary’s home waiting for him to arrive, and called him as he was about to enter. As soon as he turned to answer they shot him three times, causing his instant death.
Although the dead cleric is a member of the Iranian Arab population of Ahvaz, the regime blames both a small Arab-speaking separatist group from Ahvaz and the Wahabbis -the religious sect that Ben Laden belongs to- for the killing.
A report in Baztab, a website owned by a close friend and ally of ex-president Rafsanjani, Mohsen Rezaei, called the group “an Arab separatist movement”. The Islamic regime is well aware of the Iranians’ feelings against separatism and therefore it was putting the blame on the “bad guys” no matter what the reality may be.
Suprisingly, while doing some research for this story I could not find any report in English. Is this another attempt by the regime to keep this assassination low key and prevent the unrest from spreading? Mullah Hesham is the third senior figure in the Iranian regime killied in the past two months by unknown revolutionaries, and authorities are again trying to play it down.
Interestingly, the other two assassinations took place too close to Tehran for the regime to blame the separatists. So who did it? Are there more groups taking action? Definitely something to think about.
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21 Comments
1. Yari National Group:How many innocent people these clerics under the guise of ISLAM have killed? Remember Mullah Khalkhali?
He would go to Evin Prison and call people to the yard for execution. Also, he went to Azerbaijan and Kurdistan. Killing hundreds and hundreds indiscriminately.
When asked these people many be innocent. He replied “I will kill them. If innocent, they will go heaven. If guilty, they would go to hell”.
Now, people are getting back what these killers have dished out to Iranian people for the past 28 years!
Mullah’s are not Iranian. They do not care what happen’s to Iran!
Look at their government, parliament and mercenary army! They are all run by Iraqi’s and Palestinians.
Jun 26, 2007 - 11:45 am 2. Dar Asanjani:This is called blowback. Iran’s theocracy has been sponsoring assassination and terror in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and KSA for a long time now. It is logical that some of the bad karma find its way back to the source.
Jun 26, 2007 - 11:47 am 3. Jim Hoft:Ardeshir- The Ahwazi website has a report up on his murder.
http://www.ahwaz.org.uk/2007/06/cleric-assassinated-by-ahwazi-militants.html
Jun 26, 2007 - 12:38 pm 4. GregInSeattle:This may be a bit farfetched, but could it be Westerner special forces doing these assassinations?
Jun 26, 2007 - 12:44 pm 5. JabbaTheTutt:Since it became clear 2 years ago, or was it three years ago, that Iran was involved in destabilizing Iraq and killing American soldiers, I do not understand, why we have not unleashed our military on Iran.
1. Read Iran the riot act. Get out, stay out of Iraq.
2. Target their factories that make the deadly shaped-charge, armor-defeating roadside bombs.
Then go up the line.
3. Target the Revolutionary Guards.
4. Solicit patriotic Iranian Military to save the nation and overthrow the Mullahs.
5. Regime change.
6. Target Iranian government, the Mullahs, the military.
7. Cripple their economy. Cut off their gasoline.
8. Demand the end of support for Syria, Hezballah, Hamas and the Taliban.
Take it further up the line.
9. Take out the Syrian Intelligence and military.
10. Take out Hezballah.
11. Support government takeovers or the bombing will continue.
LET’s WIN this WAR. What are we waiting for?
Jun 26, 2007 - 12:53 pm 6. A.A:Jim, Please notice:
Not Found
The requested URL /2007/06/cleric-assassinated-by-ahwazi-mili tants.html was not found on this server.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at http://www.ahwaz.org.uk Port 80
Jun 26, 2007 - 12:58 pm 7. gkern:The culprits may be Arab agents of Sunni background attempting to preempt Iranian Shiite power by destabilizing it prior to the departure of Americans in Iraq. Kind of a prologue to the great Iraqi civil war that is sure to come when we leave there. Arabian Sunni’s will not live under Shiite control.
Jayker
Jun 26, 2007 - 1:38 pm 8. Sgt.York:I am sorry more English news was unavailable. Remember that the Current proposed U.S.Immigration bill that contains making English the Official Language will not be recognized in Iran. Therefore news of this import will be scarce if not difficult to obtain and will most likely be filtered. I do not expect droves of western journalists to cover this as we are preoccupied with Paris Hilton right now. The fact that Wahabi Sunnis (if true)were involved does not bode well for anyone not an Iranian Shia. This will inevitably make the Iranians more xenphobic and entrenched . They do not care how many Iraqi Shia and Sunni kill each other. The roles are reversed from when much the same way Kissinger told Rumsfeldt while supplying Iraq nerve gas components and arms to Sadam against Iran, during the Iran Iraqi War “lets hope they both lose”.
I am starting to believe this entire scenario has run amuck even for the Iranians, who have been forcing thousands of there own student protesters to drink from cans used to wash ones ass. while playing maracas and Timbales with skulls(You thought abu Grahab was bad) . Many of them have simply disappeared.I think things will get worse for Iran before they get better as they must now really batten down the hatches in their own ship. Anyone knows you can’t serve two wars , one against the Americans, and one against your own people.
Jun 26, 2007 - 2:13 pm 9. Peacedog:Hmmm…..professional killings by an unknown group targeting high level Iranian cretins. The unknown group does not claim responsibility, interesting for an opposition group. I suspect the US is finally starting to play smart with these jerks.
I’ve long thought a few high level political assasinations, the odd strike on Iranian infrastructure and some other clandestine shenanigans would go along way towards curbing Iranian efforts abroad. After all, they can take alot less damage than a major country like the US can. We have much deeper pockets than they do.
Jun 26, 2007 - 3:11 pm 10. blueridge:Wrong! If it was “blowback” the U.S. propaganda machine would kick into full gear and publicize it. (Funny, “blowback” is ridiculed by the same people when attached to U.S. embassy bombings, etc., even though the CIA acknowledges it.)
What is suspicious about ANOTHER assassination inside Iran is the lack of publishing it in U.S. media, which makes us suspicious that covert operations (perhaps using “separatist elements”–aiding revolution, militant groups) within Iran are behind it (i.e. CIA, MOSSAD, special forces already admitted to having infiltrated Iran). This is after all the quiet policy with Iran, precisely as it was with Iraq since 1998 under the Iraq Liberation Act.
WHY IS THIS NOT A LEADING STORY? Only because the Zionist-controlled U.S. media will not publish it, not wanting to draw attention to it.
Jun 26, 2007 - 3:18 pm 11. John the Libertarian:yawn, blueridge, yawn.
Anytime anyone says “Zionist-controlled” it means he is a tin-foil hat conspiracy kook, and the mere utterance of said expression renders everything he’s written heretofore or henceforth an utter waste of bandwidth.
If the Zionists exerted *nearly* the kind of control you think they have, the Middle East would be pacified entirely and Israel would have 20 times as much land and be building settlements in Dubai. And if the U.S. can’t even sustain a single pro-U.S. station to compete against al-Jazeera, do you honestly believe it has a mighty P.R. machine? Seems to me the Bush P.R. machine has been doing a miserable job.
Jun 26, 2007 - 3:55 pm 12. Papa Ray:One has a tendency to forget that all the media in Iran is controlled by the state.
Remember?
As far as “English Media”, if there are any there still, which I doubt, they are keeping a very low profile, because they don’t want to wind up in jail or tortured.
Who is killing who, is not so important as the fact that the killing is happening. We can only hope it continues and faster apace.
Sgt. York has nailed down the important pieces. The biggest problem our media has is that they don’t want to do anything that will promote the fact that Iran is bad and Bush is good or that he might just have excuses to spank Iran.
At least more than he is doing now, which is not much.
If we do have SOF in Iran, I doubt that they are killing anyone, at least anyone important. They would have the mission of assisting groups that want to fight, not talk. They also would have the mission of planting seeds of doubt and distrust among the Republican Guard and the Iranian Army.
Pitting them one against the other would be the ideal outcome.
Anyway, it matters none what we come up with, or think, in the end it will be what we do and what the Iranians do.
Be them Persians or Arabs, Islamic or Christian.
Papa Ray
Jun 26, 2007 - 4:41 pm 13. Winston:West Texas
USA
Tehran is burning
http://thespiritofman.blogspot.com/2007/06/petrol-crisis.html
Jun 26, 2007 - 5:19 pm 14. Pedro:If Saymary was the third “high-level” Iranian official killed in the past two months, who were the first two?
Jun 26, 2007 - 6:37 pm 15. Brad:Actually i really DONT think it has anything to do with the US and covert ops.
The Bush admin WANTS to invade Iran
Theres no reason to attack it from th einside
they want to do it from the outside.
If they (BsuhCo) get a regime change it may not help the reason to go to war.
I suspect it is Sunnis
They might be positioning themselves in case there really is a war and Iran becomes another Iraq.
The NeoCons cant help themselves from killing a few million more…
Jun 26, 2007 - 6:40 pm 16. Tom W.:Brad
http://911review.org
“The Bush admin WANTS to invade Iran
Theres[sic] no reason to attack it from th[sic] einside[sic]
they want to do it from the outside.
If they (BsuhCo)[sic] get a regime change it may not help the reason to go to war.”
Why are so many Bush haters semiliterate?
Jun 26, 2007 - 10:39 pm 17. Jen06:Brad – you are an idiot
Jun 26, 2007 - 11:00 pm 18. mark justin:this is a Kirov-type assassination, a provocation staged by the MOIS or the IRGC to justify further arrests, killings and purges of the Ahwaz Arabs. The MOIS has penetrated the Ahwaz rebels as thoroughly as it has the Tehran students. If the US wants regime change and to prevent Iran from getting the bomb it will have to run the risks of war. Our national survival will not come cheap, and these fantasies that the terrorized Iranians, whether urban or Arab, will do the job for us, must come to be regarded as such.
Jun 26, 2007 - 11:19 pm 19. heather:perhaps, giving the rioting over gas, and attacking ordinary men and women for unIslamic dress, etc., the Iranian government would LOVE to be invaded by the US.
So maybe it is best to just let the pot simmer on, and continue the successful compaign in Iraq. You should, if you have not, listen to the interview with Strategy Page and Austin Bay at Pajamas Media. VERY good and thought provoking…
Jun 27, 2007 - 6:39 pm 20. Robert Verdi:This is a regime that uses religon as legitimacy for rule. In reality the torture chamber, the machine gun, and the ration card are used to keep the populace in line. System like this are inherently unstable and dangerous, even to the people with the guns. All of the talk about Facist dictatorships providing stability is rubbish. They are stable because the killings occur in the middle of the night, or they are underplayed by the media. This regime may not implode overnight, but their hold on power is shakier then many suppose.
Jun 28, 2007 - 12:34 pm 21. Dutch:Brad:
Jun 30, 2007 - 12:56 amAre you stoned, or were you daydreaming about your next tribal tattoo, piercing or pair of Birkenstocks during grammar lessons? As long as they know they have you and all of the other bedwetters on their side, Iran will keep fighting this proxy war against the US and the West.