WHERE ARE THE IRANIAN STUDENT-TERRORISTS NOW? 10/5/06

My friend Jeremy Crow over at:
http://blog.jeremycrow4life.com/2006/11/lets-talk-about-history-baby-volume-5.html
blogged about the 27th anniversary of the American Embassy in downtown Tehran and the notable lack of American media coverage covering it yesterday. On November 4, 1979, Iranian students-turned-terrorists busted through the locked gates of the American Embassy, seizing hostages and holding them until January 20, 1981. The Israeli press mentioned that Iranian students, war veterans, and children celebrated yesterday, as they have every November 4th
by burning the American flag in front of the old embassy building [this year, they also burned the Israeli flag], protesting and marching in the streets, and chanting such enlightened slogans
as, "Death to America!"

This year's "celebration" arrives on the heels of 10 days of war games and Iran nuclear missile testing in defiance of a United Nations order not to. The United Nations is currently talking about the disobedient Iranians. In light of possible sanctions and/or military actions against Iran, last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Bush via the Swiss Embassy offering an alternative solution to the conflict regarding Iran's nuclear energy program. The sending of the letter is remarkable considering that the United States has broken off all diplomatic ties with Iran since the take-over of the American Embassy in downtown Tehran by a gang of militant Iranian students who were members of the OSU. The OSU [Office of Strengthening Unity] was in favor of a strict Islamic regime as embodied by the spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini and was responsible for the purging of dissident students and profs [read: arrested and/or put to death].

Star Reporter Mark Bowden visited Tehran several times throughout 2004 in order to track down the six, seven, or eight student leaders who were involved in the planning of the storming of the American Embassy on November 4, 1979. He found that all of them were involved in politics and/or journalism, although several of them had switched allegiances to less radical Iranian political parties.

One of them-- Abbas Abdi-- had in fact spent time at the infamous Evin prison where some of the hostages had been held by their student-terrorists for the crimes of criticising the Iranian regime and daring to publish results of a poll that purported to show that 76% of folks in the poll wanted to renew talks with the United States. Abdi had also gone to France in hopes of talking with one of the captives about the events of November 4, 1979 through January 20, 1980. That plan fell apart when he refused to apologize for the hostile takeover of the US Embassy.

Muhammad Hashemi had just retired from the Iranian counterpart to the CIA-- the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. He had hopes of promoting a tourist vacation retreat on the Caspian Sea, even speculating that the hostages would want to return to vacation there a quarter of a century later. That business venture fell through and December of 2004 found him and his spouse [an Iranian student who had lived in Philadelphia, brought in as translator, and referred to as 'screaming Mary' by several of the hostages] living with her mother.

Hussein Sheikh al-Islam was appointed to be Iran's Syrian diplomat and was living in Damascus.

Ibrahim Asghar Zada [or Asgharzadai] is a leader in the Islamic Solidarity Reform Party and the owner of Hambastegi, a conservative Iranian newspaper. His newspaper is thriving today and offers translations in French and English on the web. He was banned from seeking political office in Iran.

Said Hajarian was employed by the Office of Security and Intelligence and may have had an attempt made upon his life.

Hoseyn Shariatmadari was running an Iranian offficial newspaper called the Kayhand.

Ma'ssouma Ibtikar was a parliamentary deputy during the Khatami regime [the president preceeding Ahmadinejad and recognized as being more moderate than Ahmadinejad]. He served as vice-president under Khatami. In 2003, he was quoted as saying that the student protests that occur regularly in Iran are proof that Iran is a democracy.

Seyyed Mohammad Reza Khatami is one of former President Khatami's younger brothers. He had managed a newspaper called Mosharekat until it was banned. He has a wife and two children.

Mohsen Mirdamadi led a protest by some of the Iranian Parliament when all reformed candidates were disallowed from running in the 2005 election. Mirdamadi was among those with thwarted political ambitions. He was attacked in 2004 the night before he was supposed to meet with journalist Mark Bowden, receiving head and chest wounds.

Habibullah Bitaraf became Iran's Minsiter of Energy.

Some of the former hostages specifically remember current Iranian President Ahmadinejad as having a role in their captivity. He was thought to be student-leader-terrorist head of security and chief interrogator. Others of the hostages do not remember him. The OSU students-- and some hastily-trained volunteers-- were also each assigned responsibility of a particular group of captives. The hostages were split into groups and were moved around Iran in a series of private homes as well as stays at Evin and at the Embassy itself. It is highly probable that those with no memory of a younger Ahmadinejad didn't encounter him.

Three of the former student-leader-terrorists also have denied President Ahmadinejad direct involvement with the takeover of the American Embassy. This is also not surprizing considering that during interviews with Mark Bowden, anyone expressing regret at his role in the crisis did so quietly and with hesitation at expression of any criticism of the Iranian's current regime's anti-USA position. An Associated Press picture showing a possible younger version of Ahmadinejad holding a captive by the arm in 1978 was distributed in June of 2005 shortly after he came to power. His own website shows pictures of himself during that period looking quite different. I saw the pictures and read his cirriculum vitae and I believe it is the same man.

President Ahmadinejad had joined the OSU in 1979 as a student. He later was employed as an interrogator at Evin, had a hand in planning the assassination of many people via the elite Guard which he headed up, and considers the United States to be the Oppressor of Islamic nations. He denies the historical accounts of the Holocaust. He wants the nation of Israel to be nuked away or at the very least "re-located" to somewheres in Europe.

President Jimmy Carter failed the hostages and the American people by his inability or unwillingness to take action to end the crisis. The one military attempt to free the hostages resulted in the deaths of eight servicemen when two planes collided over the Iranian desert during a hasty retreat. Fragments of the jets are shown today to Iranian schoolkids who visit the former American Embassy now a museum.

If you have read this far, you really ought to head over to the Carter Memorial Library on-line at: http://jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/r_ode/ where at the bottom of the Robert Ode page, you will see three links to his journal that he was allowed to keep during his ordeal as one of the American hostages.

radical sapphoq

Other sources I used were:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2005/iran-050701-rferl01.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2005/iran-050701-irna01.htm
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/december-1979
http://www.groveatlantic.com/grove/bin/wc.dll?groveproc~genauth~1479~4110~DESC
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411u/int2004-11-09
http://www.thememoryhole.org/espionage_den/
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBP/is_4_45/ai_75332515
http://www.netnative.com/news/02/sep/1079.html
http://www.hambastegi.org/english/index.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-11-05-iran-us_x.htm?csp=34
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200510/iran-president-ahmadinejad
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/667/re11.htm
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/717/re81.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6116358.stm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1439070/posts