BRIEF  ON  IRAN, No. 230
        Representative Office of
        The National Council of Resistance of Iran
        Monday, August 14, 1995



        3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007


Workers' Strike in Isfahan's Simeen Factory, From a
statement issued by the Secretariat of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris, August 13

        Over 1,600 workers at Isfahan's Simeen textile
factory (in central Iran) went on strike on Thursday,
August 10, to protest non-distribution of the factory
profits among workers....
        Shootings occurred in the ensuing clashes with the
regime's Guards.
        Workers' persistence in their protest forced the
regime's officials to remove Saber, the managing director,
and promise to revise the factory's plans on distribution
of profits, before they ended their sit-in....
        The textile factory is affiliated with the Mostaz'afin
Foundation, whose head, Mohsen Rafiqdoust, was recently
summoned to a-billion-dollar fraud trial where his
brother is one of the main figures accused.


'Corruption Scandal' Threatens Islamic Revolution, The
Sunday Daily Telegraph, August 6

        LONDON - A multi-million-pound corruption
scandal reminiscent of the last days of the shah has
rocked Tehran and poses a serious threat to the future
stability of Iran's Islamic revolution.
        In a country already beset by crippling economic
problems, the suggestion that the banking scandal is only
the tip of an iceberg of  endemic corruption is unlikely to
improve the flagging fortunes of President Hashemi
Rafsanjani's Islamic regime....
        The credibility of the ruling authorities has also
been damaged by the alleged involvement of relatives of
some of the regime's leading figures in the banking
scandal....
        But for Iran's hard-pressed populace, the
allegations of fraud prompt comparisons between the
rule of the mullahs and the last days of the shah, when
exposure of widespread embezzlement strengthened the
people's will to overthrow his regime....
        The embarrassing number of corruption scandals is
unlikely to improve the popularity of Iran's Islamic
regime at a time when there is already widespread
discontent about Iran's deteriorating economic situation.
        At a time when most Iranians are not even
supplied with decent drinking water, the suggestion that
the mullahs have used the Islamic revolution to line their
own pockets will win them few friends.

Commentary

Guards Corps Maneuvers, Reaction to Escalating Wave of
Popular Uprisings

        In a speech on August 5 in Ardebil, in the
northwestern border province of Azerbaijan, the Guards
Corps Commander announced the transformation of the
Revolutionary Guards Corps into a Rapid Deployment
Force. The pronouncement marked the climax of a series
of maneuvers since more than a month ago and described
as a "big defense plan" by the state-controlled Ettela'at
newspaper.
        On July 30, the "special anti-riot battalions" of the
Guards Corps forces and Bassij staged a maneuver on the
orders and in the presence of Khamenei, the mullahs'
leader, to "ensure Tehran's security."
        In the meantime, Guards Corps forces were
stationed in "the sensitive key points," "intersections and
checkpoints" in Kermanshah ... and launched a similarly
extensive maneuver in Kermanshah to "defend the
streets and alleys" and "maintain security". Ten days
prior, the regime's forces staged a show of force in the
border town of Mehran, in the western Ilam Province.
        The locations, timing and objectives of the
maneuvers reveal them and particularly the formation of
the Rapid Deployment Force as a reaction to the spread
and escalation of popular uprisings in recent months, the
phenomena which prepare the grounds for the final
operation of the Resistance's National Liberation Army
and the regime's overthrow.
        In two major operations in 1988, the NLA liberated
Mehran and took over the cities of Islamabad, Kerend
and Sar-Pol-Zahab for four days, advancing to the gates
of Kermanshah and inflicting more than 55.000 casualties
on the regime. Six years after, the regime still holds
elaborate ceremonies to remind of the bravery of those
killed in this operation.
        Experts believe that the recent maneuvers do not
bear much value militarily and lack in the necessary
tactical stages and training. In the present critical
circumstances and in light of the advances of the Iranian
Resistance, the regime's hasty efforts to stage such shows
of force, are interpreted basically as efforts to boost the
morale of the regime's demoralized forces and in the
same time create fear and terror in the society.
Information from within the clerical regime also back the
conviction that the maneuvers aim to prepare the
mullahs' suppressive forces to contain and crackdown on
popular protests and anti-government demonstrations.