Crossfire War – TEHERAN WATCH – West Asia Theatre: Teheran – Ankara/Sanandaj – Kirkuk – Baghdad – London – Washington; Iranian Kurdish Activist Found Dead – Anti – Kurdish Cooperation Between Ankara – Teheran Continues
Night Watch: SANANDAJ – Teheran’s policy of instant elimination of any serious threat to the government continued with the arrest, 50 days ago, of a young Kurdish activist Shahed Fathi. AKI reports his body was found Friday bearing signs of extensive torture. Kurdish separatism and nationalism has long been a threat to Iran’s stability as it is in Iraq and Turkey. The Kurds are seldom comfortable under the centralized rule of any government in the region, which is why they have occasionally engaged in armed revolt as the Kurdish communities in southeastern Turkey that support the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). [AKI
As there are Kurdish networks, there are also regional government networks to counter the threat. Currently, the most active government to government cooperation against the Kurds is Ankara-Teheran with the understanding of Baghdad. By no means is this a conflict that London-Washington want to get caught up in. In the past year, both Turkey-Iran have been engaging in limited attacks against Kurdish communities along their border with Iraq. I suspect as London-Washington’s attention will soon be directed away from Iraq, when fighting resumes in the Balkans, then both Ankara-Teheran will then launch major operations against the Kurdish communities in Iraq.
The torture and killing of Fathi is the reason why it was a fantasy to assume there would be a popular revolt in Iran that would overthrow Teheran’s government. The Ayatollah Khomeini described this kind of repression as “a necessary surgery” that killed 6,000 people just in 1981 alone. That year, Teheran created a network of 38 million spies-informers, including children, to report any activity of any kind that could be a threat to the regime. Even prominent Iranian exiles have lived under constant fear of being killed. The political killings include: Christians, intellectuals, writers, singers, clerics, teachers and lawyers who have presented any threat to Teheran’s rule.
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