Khomeiny faces task of averting grave military crisis

Press, 11 July 1979, Page 8

Khomeiny faces task of averting grave military crisis

International ____

NZPA-Reuter ' ' Teheran Iran’s ousted military police chief, who has been dismissed but refuses to step down, will travel to the holy city of Qom to try to resolve the crisis in talks with the unoffical Head of State, Ayatollah Khomeiny.

General Saif Amir Rahimi, I dismissed by the Defence! Ministry from the command! of the 7000-strong Jamshidiyeh garrison in central Ter-1 heran, told NZPA-Reuter: “I i have been notified by the! Government of my dis-1 missal, but I haven’t told; them I’m not carrying out, the order.” Speaking by telephone from his heavily-guarded home, General Rahimi said: “People faithful to me are guarding the barracks. I! don’t rule out the possibility j of a plot against me now, but I will take the necessary measures to defy it.” The general, aged 55, a hard-line disciplinarian who claims a special relationship with Ayatollah Khomeiny.! said earlier in the day: “I! have 7000 armed men at myj disposal.” General Rahimi said hej planned to travel to Qom,l

150 km south of the capital, with an escort of armed guards. The Jamshidiyeh barracks and General Rahimi’s home are being guarded by the b 1 a c k-shirted Fedeyeen Khomeiny (Khomeiny guerrillas), a private army. The guerrillas guarded his office with machine-pistols and automatic rifles as he told journalists about what he called a plot at a senior level in the army to oust him and thus weaken the revolution. His press conference was I the first stage in a chain of ;events that provoked the Islamic republic’s first serious mijitary crisis. General Rahimi’s remarks led to a high-level military ! staff meeting presided over by the armed-forces chief, General Nasser Farbod. which was speedily followed by the announcement of the

military police commander’s dismissal. General Rahimi retorted “I am much stronger than the Minister of National Defence,” and told NZPAReuter in a telephone call from the Jamshidiyeh barracks that he regarded Ayatollah Khomeiny as the supreme commander. He said the unofficial Head of State had told him to remain at his post and had instituted an inquiry into the general’s allegations ,of a plot to weaken the revolution.

The ousted military police chief, jailed several times under the now-exiled Shah for opposing the monarch’s reliance on foreign military assistance, claimed the allegiance of soldiers of the Revolutionary Guard, which has effectively controlled law and order in Iran since the revolution.