BRIEF ON IRAN
No. 299
Wednesday, November 22, 1995

Representative Office of
The National Council of Resistance of Iran
3421 M Street NW #1032
Washington, DC 20007


BOI wishes you a very happy Thanksgiving Day.
The next issue of Brief on Iran
will be published for Monday, November 27.


Women Take Charge of Iran's Opposition Army

Tehran regime clings to sexism, The Washington Times (Reuters), Nov.
22

        ASHRAF CAMP, Iraq - At a parade ground on a desolate piece of
brushland northeast of Baghdad, 2,000 Iranian soldiers -- men and
women -- march past the grandstand.
        Female commanders, in red headscarves and shapeless khaki
fatigues, whisper commands into walkie-talkies and male platoon
leaders salute visiting female dignitaries.
        This is the National Liberation Army of Iran, the army of the
opposition People's Mojahedin, which has overturned centuries of sex
discriminationand given Iranian women a chance to show their
military leadership qualities.
        The occasion is also significant -- the second anniversary of the
selection of Maryam Rajavi as the "president-elect" whom this army in
exile hopes to install in place of what it sees as male chauvinist rule in
Tehran.
        In the    two years since the new prominence of Mrs. Rajavi, wife
of Mojahedin leader and   National  Liberation   Army commander in
chief Massoud Rajavi, the proportion of women among rebel army
commanders has risen to 70 percent, compared with 30 percent
among the rank and file, said Ozra Alavi-Taleghani, the deputy
commander in chief.
        "The election of Maryam Rajavi has struck at the ideological
heart of the Khomeini regime, which is based on sexual
discrimination," Mrs. Alavi-Taleghani told the assembly.
        "The slogan our members shout everywhere is that we shall take
Maryam Rajavi to Tehran as president in Operation Overthrow," she
told reporters at Ashraf Camp, the army's  main base, about 40 miles
west of Iranian border.
        The women serve as helicopter pilots, tank mechanics, logistics
officers and infantry armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
        (To be continued)


Hollow Show of Force to Break Out of Irremediable Crises, from a
statement by the NCR - Paris, Nov. 19

        Tehran's state-run radio today announced that the mullahs'
regime will launch another nationwide suppressive campaign in the
week of November 22-28. The anti-riot battalions of Ashura, Az-Zahra,
and the student units of the Bassij will once again harass and arrest
ordinary people in an organized state-sponsored event.
        These maneuvers are a hollow show of force and a ridiculous
attempt on the part of Iran's oppressive rulers to confront the rising
trend of popular protests throughout the country. The presence of all-
woman and student battalions indicates increasing discontent and
participation of women and youngsters in social protests.
        Beset by irremediable political, social and economic crises, and
engulfed in an aggravating international isolation, the regime finds
stepped up suppression and export of terrorism and fundamentalism
as its only way out. The regime's inhuman crimes, however, do not
hurt the Iranian people's determination to replace the ruling religious,
terrorist dictatorship with a democratic and pluralist government.