Clashes broke out when local people tried to prevent the arrest of several Mojahedin supporters in their area by the security forces. When the local detachment of State Security Forces failed to quash the protest, the authorities sent in reinforcements of Revolutionary Guards and SSF troops from nearby cities. Helicopter gunships from the city of Kerman were sent to the area in search of Mojahedin supporters in the countryside.
Security forces in the area had been looking for a number of Mojahedin supporters in Kahnouj region, including Youness, for some time. Two years ago, a close relative of Youness, Molavi Zia, who was a prominent Sunni religious scholar, was abducted from Karachi airport in Pakistan by the mullahs' terrorists and murdered in a brutal manner.
The region of Kahnouj has been the site of successive popular protests against the mullahÕs regime and clashes between Mojahedin supporters and Revolutionary Guards. On December 11, 1999, State Security Forces agents in Kahnouj murdered a farmer by beating him on the head repeatedly with rifle butts. The farmer, Gol-Mohammad Ahmadi, was a supporter of the Mojahedin.
A few days earlier, State Security Forces agents in the village of Qale-Ganj near Kahnouj opened fire on a crowd of 100 villagers who had gathered outside the SSF station in the village to protest against the arrest of two young men from their village. As a result of the shooting, three protesters were seriously wounded. One of them, Mohsen Ahmadi, was paralyzed from waist down.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 4, 2000
Back Home