Iraq, June 2, Reuters - Forouzan Taghizade, a heavy spanner in her hand and grease marks on her olive drab overalls, jumped from the hatch of the T-55 tank and stood at ease beside the tracks.
Her face, wrapped tightly in an Islamic headscarf of the same drab material, showed earnest dedication to her mission as one of the first women tank commanders in the National Liberation Army of Iran.
"There is a long history to the presence of women in the struggle," she said. "The most recent development has been in the military. This has been the initiative of Mariam Rajavi."
Mariam is the wife of Massoud Rajavi, leader of the exiled Mujahideen Khalq movement. She is also the influential deputy commander of the movement's army, which is now 30 per cent female and has women in roles most other women soldiers can only dream of performing.
One woman commands the workshops where the army repairs its armour, another is in charge of combat engineering, one of the most strenuous jobs in the military.
But Taghizade, hardened by five years in Iranian prisons after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and then by the loss of her husband on the battlefield, said physical strength was not a priority for her all-woman tank crew.
"Our experience is that mental skill and self-confidence are what count," she said.
"Tank driving is a technique just like any other and we have mastered it," said Sadigheh Hosseini, 34, who saw her first combat at the controls of another T-55 on March 25....
Middle class liberals, many of them educated abroad, set the tone for the Mujahideen movement, making it easier for Mariam Rajavi to impose her vision of an army without sexual discrimination.
"Since the beginning of the NLA we have never had any problem with the men because women have always been present at the leadership level," said Mehri Hajinejad, another T-55 commander.
Ashraf camp, one of the army's main rear bases close to the Iranian border, is itself named after a woman, a Mujahideen leader executed by the Iranian government during the purge of 1981.
Hajinejad said the Tehran government's policy on women had contributed to her decision to fight.
"During five years in Khomeini s prison I observed that women were under double pressure and I decided the only way to salvation was to join up," she said. ...