Sunday, March 12, 2006
Dr Mostafa Chamran
As long as I remember, I have been having Dr Mostafa Chamran as one of my role models. He has taught me how I can follow my own path regardless of my social, cultural and educational situation. He is a man that left behind all what he had for what he loved. God bless him and all Chamrans. In the rest is a brief biography of Dr Chamran from IRIB : Chamran was born in 1932 in Tehran. At 15, he began his activities with Islamic associations, participating in classes of commentary on the Quran by Late Ayatollah Taleghani and those of logic and philosophy by Martyr Professor Motahhari.
Enjoying a government scholarship for talented students, he went to the United States for a period of 14 years and earned his master's degree from the University of Texas. He then went on to get his PhD in electronics and plasma physics with excellent grades from the University of California at Berkeley. He entered research on satellites and powerful radars with Bell Laboratories.
He had complete mastery over English and Arabic and also knew French and German. His most important political activities abroad were organizing and training guerrilla and revolutionary forces in Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.
Chamran participated in guerrilla activities in liberation wars against Israel and the Phalanges. For eight years he assumed responsibility for managing the Technical School of Jabal-Amel in southern Lebanon.
At the time of the victory of the Islamic Revolution under the leadership of Imam Khomeini, Chamran returned to Iran. Initially, he became commander of the government division of the Revolutionary Guards. He was deputy prime minister for revolutionary affairs and was later appointed minister of defense.
Dr. Chamran participated actively in the Kurdistan wars and commanded the rescue forces of Paveh, Nosood, Marivan, Baneh, and Sardasht. In March, 1980, the people of Tehran elected him representative to the Islamic Consultative Assembly ( Majlis). Late Imam Khomeini selected Chamran as his military adviser and his representative to the Supreme Council of Defense.
At the time of the Iraqi invasion he went to Ahvaz, bravely fighting and never left the front. Chamran wrote many articles on political, tactical and ideological topics. Most of them were published without any author listed. In his own opinion, his ideological and intellectual activities were more important than his scientific, political or guerrilla activities.
Dr. Mostafa Chamran, the researcher, scientist, crusader and challenging guerrilla achieved martyrdom during the Iraqi-imposed war on Sunday, June 21, 1981 by a bomb splinter in the village of Dehlaviyeh.
