It seems that several helicopters, damaged by a dust storm, had landed on the runway. As one of them tried to lift off, it skidded into a transport plane, and the two aircraft had burst into flames. The desert had been the scene of a raging inferno, though no one had witnessed it.
Eight US servicemen died and four others were wounded. After the crash the remaining transport planes had flown directly back to the carrier.
A shepherd, curled up beneath a tree by an old water well at the edge of the desert, was jerked out of his sleep by an unfamiliar sound. He sat up and peered into the inky darkness. A column of smoke was rising into the starry sky.
He climbed into the tree and saw a distant fire. Realising that there must have been some kind of catastrophe, he left his flock and ran to the nearest village. Half an hour later the villagers were all standing on their roofs, staring at the blazing fire.
The village imam hurried over to the mosque, opened the door, picked up the phone – the only one in the village – and dialled Ayatollah Araki’s number. ‘Flames are shooting up out of the desert! Our village elders have never seen anything like it. Something terrible must have happened!’
The ayatollah immediately ordered the commander of the Islamic Army to drive into the desert and check out the fire. Forty-five minutes later the ayatollah picked up his red phone and called the Khomeini residence in Tehran. ‘Flames are shooting up into the sky! It looks like a couple of planes have crashed, but the heat is so intense we can’t get any closer!’
Before Tehran could put together a reconnaissance team and dispatch it to Senejan, the villagers had ridden out to the scene on their donkeys and tried to rescue the wounded.
The authorities still didn’t know exactly what had happened when Radio Moscow made an announcement on its six a.m. news: ‘Two US aircraft crashed in the desert of Iran near the city of Senejan.’
Muezzin, who always tuned in to the morning news, heard the announcement, but failed to grasp its significance. Only when he heard the word ‘Senejan’ in the repeat broadcast did he go to Aqa Jaan and say, ‘Two US aircraft crashed in the desert!’
Iran’s state-controlled television opened its two p.m. news with a live report from the crash site. First the camera zoomed in on the bodies of the Americans, then Ayatollah Araki appeared on the screen. Clutching a Kalashnikov in his right hand, he gave an impassioned speech. ‘Islam is a miracle,’ he began. ‘Even after fourteen hundred years, Islam is still a miracle!
‘Last night American planes entered our country from Iraq. They turned off their lights and flew in the dark, using the latest electronic equipment to avoid our radar. They planned everything down to the last detail and calculated everything on their super-intelligent computers, but they forgot to include one thing in their calculations: the Koran! We don’t need ultra-modern computers to make such calculations. We don’t need electronic eyes to monitor everything. There is One who watches over our country, there is One who protects us, there is One who takes care of things while we sleep, and that is Allah.
‘America has computers, we have Allah.
‘America has reconnaissance planes, we have Allah.
‘America! If you want to know who crashed your planes, read the Al-Fil surah:
A-lam tara kayfa fa‘ala rabboka be’as-habi alfeel.
Did you not see what your Lord did
To those who rode the elephants?
Did He not confound their treacherous plan?
He sent against them flocks of birds,
Which pelted them with clay pellets,
And left them like a field of half-eaten stalks.
’
Al-harb
F
ive months later, at around noon, three Iraqi warplanes flew over Tehran, flying so low that you could see the pilots in the cockpit. Everyone fled in panic at the deafening and altogether terrifying sound.
The planes bombed the airport. And with this surprise attack Iraq declared
al-harb
, war, on Iran.
The Iraqi army had crossed into Iranian territory the night before and occupied strategic targets in the southern oil-rich province of Khuzestan. Iran’s most important gas and oil refineries were now in the hands of Saddam Hussein.
The regime was shocked. People couldn’t believe it. Only after the first televised images had been broadcast, showing Iraqi tanks in front of Iranian oil refineries, did it begin to dawn on everyone that it wasn’t just a threat, but an actual war.
Khomeini appeared on television and urged all those who owned a rifle to report immediately to the nearest mosque. ‘It is jihad!’ Thanks to his call to arms, a large army of believers was mobilised within twenty-four hours. Thousands of men – both young and old, but none with any military training whatsoever – were crammed into buses and driven to the front.
Meanwhile, American spy planes, flying high above the war zone, had started photographing the movements of the Islamic Army and passing the information on to Saddam Hussein. As a result, Iranian troops were repeatedly bombed by Iraqi planes.
Khomeini, unbowed by defeat, inspired his people with courage. ‘Only death can save us now. America is monitoring our every move from above. We have no choice but to lay down a bridge of corpses that will eventually lead us to Iraq.’
An army of believers, clothed in burial sheets, took up their weapons and paved the way to the Iraqi army. The Iranians finally reached the Iraqi troops and began a war that would last for eight long years and result in the deaths of millions of soldiers on both sides.
The ayatollahs feared that the opposition would make use of the war to topple the regime. Khomeini had always been wary of the leftist movement. He thought of their supporters as enemies of Allah and the Koran, so was waiting patiently for the right moment to crush them once and for all. In turn, the leftist opposition was secretly plotting to weaken the Islamic Republic and remove the fanatical ayatollahs from power.
To safeguard the home front, the regime decided to destroy the leftist movement there and then. Khalkhal was the first to be informed. ‘Tear it out by the roots!’ Khomeini ordered. ‘Show no mercy! Stamp out all those who oppose Islam!’
In less than an hour the leaders of the Communist Tudeh Party – all of whom had supported Khomeini – had been arrested. Yet the regime didn’t manage to get its hands on the leaders of the various underground groups. After the revolution, they had been radicalised and had debated whether or not to rise up in arms against the regime. The Tudeh Party, which had opted not to fight, had walked into the trap Khomeini had set for them.
Three nights later, the party’s elderly leader – thin, grey and unshaven – was paraded on the Islamic-controlled television as on object lesson. His spirit had been broken. It was evident that he’d been taken directly from the torture chamber and placed in front of the camera. He begged to be left in peace.
It was a grisly scene, a cleverly edited videotape intended to frighten people. And it worked, for on that same night the remaining members of the Tudeh Party fled to the borders and escaped.
In Senejan, Ayatollah Araki had been ordered to clear out the Red Village.
The Red Village was in its heyday. It had declared itself an autonomous zone with its own rules and regulations – an enclave in which young men and women had set up an idealistic Communist state of their own. After the harvest, they divided the crops equally among the villagers. In the evening people gathered in the village square and read aloud the poems of the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.
On the night of the attack, the villagers were sitting in the square, watching a Russian film, when all of a sudden someone shouted: ‘Tanks! They’re coming to get us! Block the road!’
But it was too late for barricades. Within seconds the square emptied. Some of the villagers fled to the mountains, others went inside and locked their doors, and the few who had rifles hidden somewhere got them out and climbed up to their roofs.
A helicopter appeared above the village. Shots rang out from the roofs, causing the helicopter to veer off sharply and fly away.
Tanks rumbled into the village. Hundreds of armed Revolutionary Guards appeared out of nowhere and stole through the darkness, taking up strategic positions. Meanwhile, two helicopters circled overhead, shining their searchlights on the roofs and firing at everything that moved.
The villagers hadn’t been expecting such a large-scale attack. The Revolutionary Guards kept watch on the doors and windows, and fired at anyone who tried to escape. The people on the roofs fired back with fanatical zeal, but their shots were answered with grenades, which blew the roofs sky high.
There was no point in prolonging the struggle. One by one the doors of the houses opened, and the villagers came out with their hands up.
Those who had fled to the mountains were hunted down with jeeps. Anyone who refused to surrender was shot.
That night, dozens of men and women were arrested and hauled off to jail. One of them was Aqa Jaan’s son, Jawad.
Khalkhal was flown to Senejan by helicopter to try the prisoners. As Allah’s dreaded judge, he sowed death and destruction wherever he went.
The sun had not yet risen and the citizens of Senejan were still in their beds when nine young men from the Red Village were executed.
The city awoke in a state of a shock. Parents whose sons or daughters had been arrested hurried off to the prison to find out if their children had been executed.
The bodies were released to the families. But according to the sharia, the corpses were unclean and could not be buried in official cemeteries. So fathers drove into the mountains, where they hoped to give their sons a decent burial.
Aqa Jaan didn’t realise that Jawad had been arrested. He thought his son was in Tehran. It never occurred to him that Jawad might be among the prisoners.
He did know one of the boys who’d been executed – the son of the vaccination specialist whose office was opposite the mosque. Aqa Jaan was thinking of the stricken family and reading the Koran when the phone rang. He lifted the receiver.
‘I’ll keep it short,’ a man said without introducing himself. ‘I’m a friend of Jawad’s. He was arrested in the Red Village. He’s probably going to be executed. If there’s anything you can do to prevent it, you need to do it fast. Once he comes before Allah’s judge, it will be too late,’ and he hung up.
Aqa Jaan’s hand shook as he replaced the receiver. Hundreds of thoughts were racing through his head. He wanted to shout for Fakhri, but he couldn’t speak. His son had been arrested! Why hadn’t he been informed? Who was the man who phoned him? Where had he been phoning from?
As far as he knew, Jawad had gone to Tehran. What on earth had he been doing in the Red Village?
And how could he keep his son from being executed?
He didn’t know where to start. He picked up the phone to make a call, then put it down again.
He grabbed his coat, jammed his hat on his head and started to leave, but just as he was going out the door the phone rang again.
‘Excuse me,’ the same voice said. ‘He’s in the city jail. The judge will come back in a few days to try the rest of the prisoners. You need to hurry.’
‘But what was he doing in the Red Village? And who are you?’
‘We were there together. I managed to escape in time; he was arrested. You’ve got to act quickly. Sorry, I can’t talk any longer, I’ve got to go,’ the man said, and he hung up.
Aqa Jaan hurried towards the gate, but halfway there he turned around and came back. ‘Fakhri Sadat!’ he called.
There was no answer.
‘Fakhri Sadat!’ he called louder.
Fakhri, who could tell from his voice that something was wrong, hurried downstairs.
‘Brace yourself for some bad news,’ Aqa Jaan warned her. ‘Jawad has been arrested!’
Fakhri nearly fainted. ‘Arrested? Why?’ she gasped.
‘A friend of his just called. Jawad was arrested in the Red Village.’
‘What was he doing there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Maybe he went there with Shahbal. Where’s Shahbal?’
‘I don’t know that either,’ he said. ‘But we have to do something before it’s too late!’ He started towards the door, then stopped. ‘I don’t know what to do or where to go.’
‘Go to the mosque!’ said Fakhri Sadat, her face as white as a sheet. ‘Talk to the ayatollah!’
Aqa Jaan opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. He hadn’t been inside the mosque, not even to pray, since it had been taken away from him.
Swallowing his pride, he went over to the mosque, but the ayatollah wasn’t in his office. ‘Where’s the ayatollah?’ he asked the new caretaker.
‘He cancelled his appointments and won’t be coming in for a while. He doesn’t want people pestering him with questions about the executions.’
‘How can I get in touch with him?’
‘I don’t know. Nobody knows. He has more than one address.’
Aqa Jaan went into the grocery shop opposite the mosque.
‘Aqa Jaan! What can I do for you?’
‘Do you know where the ayatollah lives? I need to get hold of him right away!’
The grocer took pity on him. ‘
La ilaha illa Allah
,’ he said. ‘I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but why don’t you try the mansion that used to belong to the former chief of the secret police?’
Aqa Jaan took a taxi to the house.
Armed guards were posted outside. He went up to the gate, but the guards told him they couldn’t let him through and advised him to use the intercom that was connected to the house. He pressed the button. It took a while before someone answered.
‘What do you want?’ snapped a gruff voice.
‘I’d like to speak to the ayatollah.’
‘Write him a note and stick it in the letterbox on the right-hand side of the gate.’