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Basij Base Attacked?

Posted by BLin on June 15th, 2009

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That’s the early word via NIAC:

“Reliable news from Iran has arrived that after the death of one person by Basij, the Basij base in Azadi Sq. has been burned down and the commander in that base has been killed.” [The fire is being confirmed by an eye-witness.]

The Basij is kind of like an Iranian secret police.  From Wikipedia:

a volunteer-based Iranian paramilitary force founded by the order of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on November 1979. The Basij are subordinate to, and receive their orders from, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Also, here’s a couple of good reports from Lindsey Hilsum of Britain’s Channel 4 News:

UPDATE:

It appears the AP has confirmed this story:

Gunfire from a pro-government militia killed one man and wounded several others Monday after hundreds of thousands of chanting opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marched in central Tehran to support their pro-reform leader in his first public appearance since disputed elections. [...]

Later, a group of demonstrators with fuel canisters set a small fire at a compound of a volunteer militia linked to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard as the crowd dispersed from the square. As some tried to storm the building, people on the roof could be seen firing directly at the demonstrators at the northern edge of the square, away from the heart of the rally.

It seems the Basij is responsible the most egregious violence.  From what I have read, the uniformed Iranian police mostly stood idly by after it became clear that hundreds of thousands had showed up to demonstrate.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Some Pulp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

2 Responses to “Basij Base Attacked?”

  1. June 15th, 2009 at 4:46 pm

    rob says:

    Now the part that bothers me (absent from the cut of Wikipedia you posted) is:

    The Basij (literally “Mobilization”) — also Bassij or Baseej, or Persian: بسيج; also Baseej-e Mostaz’afin, (literally “Mobilization of the Oppressed);” and officially Nirouye Moqavemate Basij (“Basij Resistance Force”)[1] Persian: نیروی مقاومت بسیج — is the largest student union in Iran and a volunteer-based Iranian paramilitary force founded by the order of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on November 1979. The Basij are subordinate to, and receive their orders from, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

    That part about the “Largest student union” in Iran in addition to being the volunteer-based paramillitary force. Is it typically made up of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad supporting students? If so, that’s pretty depressing that we have student on student violence going on :\

  2. June 15th, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    choof says:

    That would be really interesting, and also put a civil-war-esque taste in my mouth.

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