Word: montazeri
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...Lebanese terrorists. The Washington Times published a copy of what it said was a letter written to Reagan late last year by Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian expatriate who acted as a middleman in the deals. In it, Ghorbanifar supposedly said he had made "substantial payments" to Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, a high Iranian official. Expanding on the story, the New York Times quoted sources as estimating that Ghorbanifar paid around $10 million to various Iranians and a group that financed the Lebanese kidnapers of American hostages. Ghorbanifar, contacted by TIME, had "no comment" on the letter to Reagan, but denied...
Like almost everything else in Iran today, the reasons behind Seib's arrest remain a puzzle. The incident could have resulted from the continuing power struggle between the ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, the designated successor to the aging, ailing Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian parliament. The journalists had been invited by Rafsanjani supporters, and Montazeri's men may have been trying to embarrass them by arresting the reporter...
...dealings with Iran have been portrayed as an overture to moderates led by Speaker of the Parliament Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Actually, CIA sources say, Ghorbanifar had persuaded the entire political leadership of the Islamic republic, including Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi and Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, designated successor to Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, to assent to secret contacts with the U.S. Two reasons: the Iranians feared the Soviet threat more than any from the West; and they hoped that American arms would soon follow improved relations with...
...chief rival is Montazeri, who has known Khomeini for at least 40 years and whose power base is the vast network of clerics who exert enormous influence over the population. It is widely believed that Montazeri's aides maintain close contacts with the Lebanese Shi'ite captors of the American hostages and that his militant supporters worked to block the efforts of Rafsanjani to trade arms for the captives held in Lebanon. According to this theory, Rafsanjani retaliated by arresting Hashemi and his associates on a variety of charges, and the hard-liners in turn put an end to Rafsanjani...
...moment, neither Montazeri nor Rafsanjani appears to have been irreparably damaged by the recent brush with the U.S. Some Western diplomats believe that if Khomeini were to die tomorrow, Montazeri would become the country's religious leader and rule from the holy city of Qum, while Rafsanjani would run the government. But given the range of problems that Iran faces right now, such assessments could quickly change...