More Martyrs, More Blood

As his opposition grows, Khomeini urges his forces to fight on

Sometime on the night of Sept. 4, a contingent of heavily armed Islamic guards arrived at Evin Prison in northwest Tehran in a caravan of largely empty Jeeps and minibuses. As sleepy--and astonished--prison guards watched, the intruders rounded up some 150 prisoners, many of whom had recently been incarcerated for political crimes by the fundamentalist courts of the beleaguered Khomeini regime. Corralled into groups of eight to ten, the prisoners were led outside to the waiting vehicles. When some guards objected to the mysterious procedure, they were crisply told to mind their own business.

TIME has learned through sources within the Khomeini regime that the prisoners, including a number of teenagers, were taken from Evin to unknown locations and murdered. Relatives of other executed dissidents stumbled upon "mounds of untended bodies" at Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, south of Tehran, and were able to identify some as the missing prisoners. SAVAK agents under the Shah once used the same cemetery as a dumping ground for their murdered victims, burying the bodies in unmarked graves. For the first time since Iran's clerical government took over in February 1979, the mass execution was not announced with Khomeini's customary boldness.

The secret massacre may signal a new phase of the Iranian revolution. Confronted by the growing power of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (People's Crusaders), who have assassinated some 200 officials and clerical leaders since June, Khomeini has responded with a campaign to round up and execute political enemies. The toll thus far: over 1,000 killed and 10,000 imprisoned. Observers in Tehran believe adverse reactions both within Iran and abroad to the spate of killing have driven Khomeini's forces to adopt the late Shah's clandestine methods.

In a radio address, Khomeini warned leaders of the fundamentalist Islamic Republic Party that parliament was a likely target for bombing by insurrectionist forces. He then strove to assure Iranians that Iran is "the most stable country in the world." After naming Ayatullah Mohammed Reza Mahdavi Kani, a former interior minister, as Prime Minister to replace the assassinated Mohammed Javad Bahonar, the Imam intoned: "When a Prime Minister is assassinated, another is appointed the same day, and when a President is assassinated, another is elected right on schedule."

Meanwhile, the Mujahedin and other anti-Khomeini forces attacked Islamic guards in Tehran and elsewhere. The guerrillas reportedly dragged five Islamic guards out of a Tehran shop and executed them on a street corner; they were also said to have killed 26 personal envoys of Khomeini in revolutionary courts around the country. In Tabriz, a man exploded a hand grenade strapped to his waist, killing himself, Khomeini Aide Ayatullah Assadollah Madani and at least six others as they participated in noon prayers. At week's end, for the first time since the ouster of President Abolhassan Banisadr, anti-Khomeini demonstrators took to the streets to vent their anger.

Broadcasting for the second time in three days, Khomeini threatened his opponents with "incessant sword strokes to the head" and exhorted his followers not to "shy away from martyrdom." Said one source in close contact with the struggle in Iran: "It is a civil war in all but name."

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