Mousa Khiabani

Mousa Nasiroghli (Khiabani) (Persian: موسی نصیر اوغلی (خیابانی); 1947 – 8 February 1982) was a leading member of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) and the commander of its armed wing from 1979 to 1982, when he was killed in action.[1]

Mousa Khiabani
Born1947
Tabriz, Imperial State of Iran
Died8 February 1982(1982-02-08) (aged 34–35)
Tehran, Iran
Alma materUniversity of Tehran
Political partyPeople's Mujahedin of Iran
Spouse
Azar Rezaei
​
(m. 1980⁠–⁠1982)​

Khiabani has been described as "Massoud Rajavi's right-hand man"[2] and "second-in-command".[3]

According to Ervand Abrahamian, along with Rajavi, he acted as the organization's post-1979 spokesman and viewed as equal to Rajavi by the outsiders, despite the fact that MEK insiders knew Rajavi to be pre-eminent.[2]

Life and career

Khiabani was born into a bazaari family in Tabriz in 1947,[4] he frequently participated in the Moharram rituals.[2] He studied physics at the University of Tehran.[4] Trained in guerilla warfare in Lebanon,[2] he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1972 for his activities with the MEK, however he was released in 1979 following Iranian Revolution.[4]

He ran for a seat in the 1979 constitutional and 1980 parliamentary elections from his hometown, however he was defeated.[5]

On 8 February 1982, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps raided Khiabani's safe house in northern Tehran and after three hours of gunshots, Khiabani and his wife Azar Rezaei along with other fellow MEK members were killed.[6]

References
  1. Tom Lansford (2015). "Iran". Political Handbook of the World 2015. CQ Press. ISBN 978-1483371559.
  2. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 172, ISBN 9781850430773
  3. Paydar, Parvin (1995). Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran. Cambridge University Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-521-59572-8.
  4. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, pp. 132, 174, ISBN 9781850430773
  5. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 193, ISBN 9781850430773
  6. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 222, ISBN 9781850430773
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