Remembering The Haft e Tir Bombing

The recent assassination of the Hamas leader in Iran reminded me of a major event in the region that has been mostly forgotten in the west. It is the Haft e Tir Bombing in Iran. 

The Iranian Revolution had begun three years before. The hostage crisis, where the staff of the U.S. Embassy had been held captive for 444 days had ended six months before. Iran had been at war with neighboring Iraq for nearly a year. The Iranian Revolution was still working itself out. President Abolhassan Bani Sadr, one of the founders of the revolution, had been removed and gone off into exile.

On June 1981 a meeting took place with most of the top members of Iran's revolutionary government. A massive bomb exploded, killing more than 70 people including most of the government. Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, was not there. 

According to what I have read in the news a sound engineer, who set up the microphone and speakers, had brought the bomb in. One account was that it was hidden in a cart that was used to move speakers around. Another account was that it was hidden in a trash can.

It has never been established with certainty who was responsible for the bombing. The socialist Mujahedeen e Khalq had been against the former government of the Shah, who had been overthrown by the revolution. But by this point the Mujahedeen had turned against the new revolutionary government of Khomeini. It is they who are most widely believed to be behind the bombing.

The Mujahedeen e Khalq were later supported by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. Former president Abolhassan Bani Sadr is believed to have joined forces with the Mujahedeen. From exile in France, Bani Sadr was an outspoken critic of the revolution. Ironically he lived not far from where he had supported Khomeini during the four months that he spent in exile in Neauphle Le Chateau. I find it interesting that Bani Sadr seems to have commented about everything else regarding the revolution but I can't find that he had anything to say about this bombing, which took place not long after he was removed as president.

It is honestly a great credit to Iran's revolution that it survived this bombing. A lot of observers at the time didn't think it would.

There is a persistent story that Israel's Mossad was behind the bombing. However I don't think that it was.

Iran and Iraq were at war, but both were hostile toward Israel. I am sure that the Israeli leadership was more concerned about Iraq, simply because it was geographically closer. The Haft e Tir Bombing came three weeks after Israel had destroyed the Iraqi Osirak Nuclear Reactor in a surprise air raid.

In the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, we saw in section 2) THE REAL STORY OF OSIRAK, that while the bombing was to stop Saddam Hussein from getting a nuclear bomb, it was also a message to Iran, which had previously unsuccessfully bombed the reactor but had launched a brilliant air raid on the air base known as H3, on the far other side of Iraq.

In section 51) EXPLAINING THE VELA INCIDENT, in the same compound posting, we saw the test of a neutron bomb, just after Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979, as evidence that Israel was more concerned about Iraq than about Iran. If anything Iran was inadvertently helping Israel by keeping Iraq occupied and wearing down it's military.

If Israel wasn't behind the Haft e Tir Bombing there is another story that it at least supplied the bomb to the Mujahedeen e Khalq. It is interesting that the bombing happened three weeks after the Israeli air raid on the Iraqi reactor. But what if the bombing caused the collapse of the Iranian Government, it's revolution, and it's war with Iraq? Then the Iraqi military would be free to turn it's attention to Israel.

Isn't it more likely that Iraq supplied the bomb? After initial Iraqi gains, Iran was starting to gain the upper hand in the war. If the bombing caused the collapse of the Iranian Revolution that would be great. But if not it would look as if Israel was behind it and it would prompt Iranian military action against Israel, taking some pressure off Iraq.

Israel or it's Mossad has never denied being behind the bombing, although I don't think it was. The Mossad likes to show that it can conduct operations inside Iran. The message being "Don't forget the Haft e Tir Bombing because it could happen again".