Mostafa Chamran

Mostafa Chamran Savehi (Persian: مصطفی چمران ساوه‌ای; 2 October 1932 – 21 June 1981) was an Iranian scientist, politician, and guerrilla, best known for serving as the first defense minister of post-revolutionary Iran.

In 1980, Chamran was elected to the Iranian Majles, representing Tehran. That same year, he commanded a paramilitary unit in the Iran–Iraq War, known as the "Irregular Warfare Headquarters". He was later killed on the frontlines.

Chamran was born into a religious Persian family on 2 October 1932 in Tehran.^[4][5] He studied at Alborz High School, while also receiving a Shia Islamic education from Mahmoud Taleghani.^[6]

Chamran graduated from University of Tehran with a bachelor's degree in electromechanics.^[4] In the late 1950s, he moved to the United States for higher education under an Imperial Iranian government scholarship, obtaining an M.S. in electricial engineering from Texas A&M University.^[7] He then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and plasma physics in 1963 from the University of California, Berkeley.^[8] Chamran was subsequently employed as a research staff scientist at Bell Laboratories and later at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.^[9][10]

In the 1960s, Chamran was a prominent member of the Freedom Movement of Iran (FMI), a pro-democratic, anti-Shah political organization led by Mehdi Bazargan.^[4][11] He belonged to the party's revolutionary bloc alongside Ebrahim Yazdi, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and Ali Shariati, all of whom had studied at Western universities and were sympathetic to religious left-wing ideals.^[12]

Following the conclusion of his doctoral studies at Berkeley, Chamran went to Cuba to attend a military camp.^[13] In December 1963, he, Ghotbzadeh, and Yazdi traveled from the United States to Egypt, where they received training in guerilla warfare.^[14][15] They met with Egyptian authorities to propose establishing an anti-Shah organization in the country called SAMA, with Chamran chosen as its military head.^[12]

Upon Chamran's return to the United States in 1965, he founded a group called Red Shi'ism in San Jose, aimed at training far-left Islamist militants; his brother Mehdi was an early member.^[14] In 1968, he helped establish another anti-Shah and Islamist organization, the Muslim Students' Association of America (MSA), which was led by Yazdi.^[14] The MSA soon established branches in the United Kingdom and France.^[14]

In 1971, Chamran left the United States for Lebanon^[14] to join the Palestine Liberation Organization and Amal Movement.^[13] He became a leading figure of the revolutionary Islamic movement in the Middle East, organizing and training guerrilla forces in Algeria, Egypt, and Syria. During Lebanese Civil War, he actively cooperated with Musa al-Sadr and became known as his "right-hand man".^[16][17][18]

Chamran, along with Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, was known as part of a clique called the “Syrian mafia” within the inner circle of Ruhollah Khomeini. There was a reported feud between this group and a Libya-friendly faction led by Mohammad Montazeri.^[19]

Following the Iranian Revolution, Chamran returned to Iran in February 1979 and was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Revolutionary Affairs in the cabinet of Mehdi Bazargan.^[20][21] He was later appointed Minister of Defense,^[22] becoming the first civilian defense minister of the Islamic Republic.^[23] As a result of this position, Chamran led military action against a rebellion in Kurdistan.^[20]

In May 1980, Chamran was elected to the Majles (parliament) as a representative of Tehran.^[24] That same month, he was appointed by Khomeini to the Supreme Council of National Defense.^[25]

When the Iran–Iraq War began in September 1980, Chamran led an irregular warfare infantry unit called the "Irregular Warfare Headquarters".^[9] He was wounded in the leg during the Liberation of Susangerd.^[26]

Chamran was killed in Dehlaviyeh on 21 June 1981 during a clash with Iraqi forces.^{[4][27][28][29][30]} His death is regarded as "suspicious", as the details surrounding it have remained unclear.^[31][32][33] Chamran was buried in the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran.^[9]

Chamran married an American woman, Tamsen Keyston, in 1961.^[34] They had four children together before divorcing in the early 1970s; one of them, a son named Jamal, died at the age of three in a pool drowning accident in 1973.^[35]

During his time in Lebanon, Chamran remarried a Lebanese woman, Ghada Jaber, who was also a member of the Amal Movement.^[36][37]

Ayatollah Khomeini publicly proclaimed Chamran as a "proud commander of Islam".^[9] Chamran was posthumously honoured by having buildings and streets in Iran and Lebanon named after him, including a major expressway.^[9] A species of moth was named after him in 2013.^[38][39]

In 2012, Mohsen Alavipour published a Persian-language biography of Chamran.^[40] The next year, an English-language biography of Chamran titled 22: Not a new lifestyle for those who thirst for humanity! was published in the United Kingdom.^[41]

In 2014, a film titled Che (Persian: چ), directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia, was released to honour Chamran. The film portrays two days in Chamran's life following the Iranian Revolution. In 2017, Reza Mirkarimi produced an animated film about Chamran.^[42][43]

• 1979 Kurdish rebellion in Iran
• Asghar Vesali

• (in Persian) Official website

Media related to Mostafa Chamran at Wikimedia Commons