More than 1,000 workers of Isfahan's Mohaya-Gaz factory gathered in protest in front of the city's Labor Department on Saturday, September 13, reports from Iran say.

Consequently many of the protesters were beat up and arrested by the Guards Corps troops and agents of the Ministry of Intelligence. No information is available on the fate of those arrested.

Mohaya-Gaz workers have not received any salaries for months, yet their protests have remained unanswered.

Like many other factories in Iran, Mohaya-Gaz factory has virtually become bankrupt due to astronomical embezzlements and economic mismanagement under the mullahs' regime. The factory's production line is idle most of the time.

The National Council of Resistance reporting on the event called on the international workers' organizations and labor unions to intervene to save the lives of the arrested workers and drew their attention to the flagrant violations of the rights of Iranian workers.

A Father Persistent to Abandon His Child!, Iran Zamin News Agency, September 18 

The Tehran regime’s news agency, IRNA, recently interviewed Mohsen Reza’i, whose resignation from the Revolutionary Guards Corps was announced September 9, 1997. Reza’i’s resignation was one of the most dramatic outward signs of the factional infighting that has dissipated the mullahs’ regime since the May election of Mohammad Khatami. The regime has, of course, gone to great effort to play down its problems, to the extent that IRNA even referred to Reza’i’s resignation as "a rumor." Reza’i’s interview with IRNA was presumably intended to counteract the negative repercussions of his resignation among the Guards Corps and Bassij rank and file.

Reza’i told IRNA: "This does not mean resignation, but leaving one front to enter another... This talk about my distancing myself from the Guards Corps, that’s not how it is. I will never distance myself from the Corps. My feelings toward the Corps are like a father’s feelings about his child. I shall never let go of the Guards Corps...

"For the past three years, I have constantly asked Khamenei to allow me to get involved in non-military activities and work on the cultural front, but he emphasized the importance of the Revolutionary Guards and my presence therein."

For the past 16 years, Mohsen Reza’i has been a key player in the mullahs’ war machine, atrocities and suppression. His pretenses about an affinity for Iranian cultural affairs (in his words, "the cultural front") are preposterous, and presumably signal his intention to enter the political fray in his new post on the State Expediency Determination Council.

Looking for A Place to Escape?, Iran Zamin News Agency, September 18 

Javadi-Amolli is one of the most important mullahs of the clerical regime. At one point, Khomeini sent Javadi-Amolli as his special emissary to the Soviet Union to meet with Gorbachev. In his Friday prayer sermon on September 12, 1997, in Qom, Javadi-Amolli openly acknowledged the mullahs’ alarm at the intensity of their internal conflicts and the erosion of their regime.

"... All at once, you might see that Saddam has attacked Iran; all at once, you might see that Saddam has attacked Kuwait; all at once you might see that America is attacking, or four other countries. Before you can move, it’s bullets! This talk about the United Nations and their law -- there is no one on earth willing to talk truth. There is only force.

"As for Iran, God forbid that some of these differences in taste that they suddenly grab on to, God forbid that they should go beyond brotherly differences in taste. Before you can move, it’s bullets!

"What did Iran do to deserve an attack by Saddam? What are these nice little countries doing that America is still attacking them?... To our West is the blood-thirsty Saddam; to our south, these stupid sheiks of the Persian Gulf are lining up against Iran; Turkey has gone secular; that leaves us and the barbed wire. If, God forbid, disaster strikes, there is no place for someone to take his wife and children by the hand and escape to. Hold on tight to the Velayat-Faqih, the Quran, to your own kind, to unity, and to the leadership that is the divine light."

Iran Troops Stage Mock Attacks on ``Enemy'' Forces, Reuter, September 18

TEHRAN - Thousands of Iranian troops backed by artillery and helicopters launched mock attacks on "enemy" positions Thursday ahead of major war games next week, state-run Tehran radio said.

It said paratroopers landed behind the "enemy" forces' lines to complete their encirclement in a preliminary stage of the exercises due to be held by 200,000 army, air force and naval troops outside the holy city of Qom, 75 miles south of Tehran….

Iran's air force was also due to complete three days of war games Thursday, in exercises covering much of the country's southern airspace.

Air Force Commander Brig. Gen. Habib Baqaei said Wednesday 150 fighter planes and bombers engaged in electronic warfare and practiced defending strategic and economic installations against enemy attacks.

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