THE fate of the 15 British marines and sailors held in Tehran may depend on the outcome of a power struggle between two of IranÂ’s top generals, write Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin.
According to an Iranian military source, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards has called for them to be freed. Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi is said to have told the country’s Supreme National Security Council on Friday that the situation was “getting out of control” and urged its members to consider the immediate release of the prisoners to defuse tension in the Gulf.
However, Safavi’s intervention was reportedly denounced by another senior general at a meeting of high-ranking commanders yesterday. Yadollah Javani, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ political bureau, was said to have accused him of weakness and “liberal tendencies”. Javani is said to have demanded that the prisoners be put on trial.
Reports of the clash emerged as Terry Waite, who was kidnapped in Beirut while trying to negotiate a hostage release in 1987, offered to travel to Tehran to try to secure the release of the 14 servicemen and one woman. “I don’t think one needs to be afraid of these people, but one does need to have respect for their point of view, whether you agree with it or not,” said Waite, who spent almost five years as the hostage of an Iranian-backed fundamentalist group in Beirut.
Oh, good grief... |