Iran's Mujahedeen fight to "liberate" their Iranian sisters
Two Iranian women walk through the street in Khoramshahr, six km from the Iran-Iraq border 04 April 2003. In Iranian cities close to Iraq, people are monitoring with concern the war across the border, with many torn between their hatred of Iraq President Saddam Hussein and their dislike of the Western coalition. AFP PHOTO/Henghameh FAHIMI
By Karl Malakunas
ASHRAF, Iraq (AFP) Standing next to the ageing tanks they intend to ride in to "liberate" Iran, the stern young women speak of freedom and democracy for all their sisters suffering under the clerical Islamic regime that rules their homeland.
The women of the People's Mujahedeen, a paramilitary outfit that has operated from Iraq for 17 years, make up one-quarter of their army's forces but also serve on the front line of the equally important propaganda war.
"I have devoted everything in my life to free the women of Iran and the people of Iran," 25-year-old tank driver Elham Zanjani told AFP this week from the mujahedeen's main Ashraf base north of Baghdad and less than 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the Iranian border.
Zanjani was born and grew up in Canada but quit a physiotherapy course half way through to travel to Iraq and join the mujahedeen.
"I couldn't continue living a comfortable life knowing the people of Iran, especially the women, were suffering," she said, explaining that her parents had heavily influenced her with their support of the mujahedeen's struggle.
"I wasn't satisfied. Right now I am more than satisfied."
Zanjani's commander is Sima Bogherzedeh, a 28-year-old woman who said her father was killed by government forces in Iran in 1988.
Bogherzedeh has since lived with the mujahedeen and her passion for the cause appears fanatical.
"I'm sure there's no freedom-loving people in the world who can live comfortably when they see so much oppression on their own soil," Bogherzedeh said before launching into what sounded like a memorised text from a mujahedeen public relation's textbook.
"I hope that in the future the millions of Iranian women will be emancipated and that all Iranians will live with peace, freedom, independence, significant economic growth and good neighbourly relations with other countries."
Bogherzedeh sees one of the roles of the female mujahedeen fighters as a symbol of hope and free choice for all Muslim women, but particularly in Iran.
"For the women soldiers there are particular difficulties that we have to overcome considering we come from an Islamic background," she said.
"But because we don't see any limitations we feel free."
However, the women of the mujahedeen are more than just PR officers, with 21 women suffering from war injuries at the group's Ashraf base hospital a testament to the real dangers they face.
Mahnaz Bazazi, 45, has had both her legs amputated above the knee after a bombing incident blamed on the United States on 6 April at another of the mujahedeen's Iraqi bases.
And a row of eight women in another ward was nursing various bullet and shrapnel wounds from what they said were various ambushes by Iranian government forces on Iraqi soil.
After 17 years in Iraq with the approval of dictator Saddam Hussein and with a "terrorist" label attached to them, the mujahedeen are frantically trying to convince the country's new rulers, the United States, to allow them to continue operating.
The group has made some early progress, with the United States allowing them to remain armed and in Iraq for the time being, even though Washington has not dropped the terrorist tag.
The mujahedeen says it has "thousands" of soldiers committed to overthrowing the Iranian regime in Iraq, but does not give specific numbers.