Statement No. 13
Khamenei: "Enemy targeting our national security"

Mullahs' Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei broke his four-day silence on students' protests and, in a speech broadcast on the state-run television today, showed the deep fears of the ruling mullahs vis-a-vis the rising wave of protests in Tehran and its spread to other cities.

"Beware of the enemy," Khamenei told his audience. "Know your enemy well. Do not let yourselves be caught unaware as far as the enemy is concerned... The enemy has chosen the student as its target."

Khamenei emphasized that "the principal enemies have planned these events... They will come in through any window they would find. Increase your vigilance."

Khamenei emphasized: "The enemy has targeted our national security." He added: "For a nation, national security is the most important need."

Khamenei acknowledged the deep resentment of angry students against the entire regime and the fact that they have torn up posters of himself, saying: "Even if they burn up my pictures, you must remain silent."

In an explicit allusion to the Iranian Resistance, Khamenei said: "Those who have been lying in ambush for 20, 19 or 18 years to take revenge from our nation, our Imam and the path of the Imam, they must know that they have committed a mistake."

Addressing the factions within the regime and referring to the consequences of the clerical regime's leadership becoming a troika, Khamenei said: "Did you see how the enemy bit us? Draw a red line for your political confrontations."

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 12, 1999

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