Remembering Iran’s 9/11

Remembering Iran’s 9/11

Today marks the 27th anniversary of one of the most heinous terrorist acts by the founders of the Islamic Republic: The August 19, 1978 burning of Cinema Rex in the city of Abadan, in which some 400 Iranians were burned alive.

Masterminded in order to point the finger at the Iranian government, this mass murder was, as a number of commentators have put it, Iran’s 9/11.

There was a major difference, however: In our country, the terrorists won.

Several months after this heinous act and after the fall of the Iranian government, in a February 4, 1980 interview with the now republican-controlled Pars News, Nasser Minachi, “Committee for the Defense of Freedom and Human Right’s” contact with the US embassy---members of this committee included such luminaries as Mullah Mehdi Bazargan, Karim Sanjabi, and “comrades” Ali-Asghar Haj Seyd Javadi and Abdolkarim Lahiji---, would give some details about the services rendered by this committee in the realization of the “Glorious” Revolution:

“During the Cinema Rex fire in Abadan, we along with ‘Students’ Islamic Association’ organized a meeting in front of Washington Post’s Tehran office, where we succeeded in representing the Shah’s government as the culprit, thus preventing the blame being put on the Mullahs and Moslems. We completely changed US public opinion regarding the Cinema Rex fire.”



For a detailed account, please read THIS.

For the most complete archive of articles about the Cinema Rex arson go HERE.