Death of the Designer and Military Commander of the Noujeh Coup

Mohammad Baqir Bani Amiri, the designer and military commander of 'Operation Negab' or 'Operation Shahrokhi', which is referred to as the 'Noujeh Coup' in the official literature of the Islamic Republic, passed away on Tuesday, February 16, in London. Bani Amiri had retired as a colonel in the gendarmerie before the revolution. According to himself, after the establishment of the religious government, he endeavored to overthrow this regime, separate religion from the state, and establish a democratic government. To achieve this goal, he, along with several of his military friends, planned to overthrow Ayatollah Khomeini's government. The exile of the last king of Iran from Egypt to Mexico hindered Bani Amiri and his associates' efforts to gain his support for the military coup. It was then that he and retired Colonel Ataollah Ahmadi began their efforts to connect with Shapur Bakhtiar. These efforts quickly bore fruit. Bakhtiar, the last Prime Minister of Iran before the Islamic Revolution, was in Paris at that time, dreaming of overthrowing the clerical government. He was not alone in this dream. Other political and military figures who were either opposed to the revolution from the beginning or had played a role in the Islamic Revolution but had quickly regretted it shared a similar goal. During the days when revolutionary groups such as the People's Mojahedin Organization and many communist groups including the Tudeh Party and the Fedaian Khalq Organization continued to defend the Islamic Republic and the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, some senior and mid-ranking military personnel in the army were each hopefully pursuing separate military plans against the newly established regime. Air Marshal Gholamali Oveisi, Air Marshal Bahram Aryana, and Captain Shahriar Shafigh, the nephew of Mohammad Reza Shah, were among these military figures. None of these military personnel had an organizational connection with Shapur Bakhtiar. Meanwhile, retired gendarmerie Colonel Mohammad Baqir Bani Amiri, after a secret trip to Paris and a meeting with Bakhtiar, took command of Operation Negab (an acronym for the Rescue of the Great Iranian Uprising). Mehran Kolbadi, a member of the core group of Negab, told Radio Farda that before Bani Amiri contacted Bakhtiar, he and several other members of the air, naval, and ground forces had formed a secret group called 'Jafa', which stands for the Veterans of the Fedaian of Iran. According to Mr. Kolbadi, after Bakhtiar's associates secretly contacted the 'Jafa' group, the 'Negab' group was formed, and Mohammad Baqir Bani Amiri took military leadership of it. Mehran Kolbadi believes that despite the presence of two air marshals (Air Marshal Saeed Mahdiyoun and Brigadier General Ayt Mohagheghi) in this group, for reasons such as Colonel Bani Amiri being older than the other members of the group, or having taken the initiative earlier and having close relationships with other military personnel, he was able to establish himself as the central figure and leader of the operation. The 'Negab' group began contacting dissatisfied military personnel in various parts of the army, gendarmerie, and other groups for operations from late 1979. Shapur Bakhtiar also gained extensive financial resources by garnering support from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, who had not yet gone to war with Iran, and provided it to the Negab group. Ultimately, a comprehensive plan for a military coup against the Islamic Republic was designed. Based on Mohammad Baqir Bani Amiri's plan, uprisings were to occur in the ethnic regions of Iran, especially among some Bakhtiari, Qashqai, and Boyer-Ahmadi tribes in the days leading up to July 9, 1980. These uprisings would cause the Revolutionary Guards and other military units loyal to the Islamic Republic to lose their focus on Tehran and leave the center to suppress the unrest. The next phase was for hundreds of special forces paratroopers and dozens of air force pilots to go to Noujeh Air Base in Hamadan in separate groups and, by taking control of this base, seize its bombers and attack their targets in Tehran, Qom, and other cities. Noujeh Air Base in Hamadan was formerly known as 'Shahrokhi' before the Islamic Revolution, which is why Operation Negab became more commonly known as Operation Shahrokhi. The residence of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Republic at the time, the Prime Minister's office, the Presidency, the Feyziyeh School in Qom, the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, important Revolutionary Guard bases and Islamic Revolution committees, and the air force's fighter base bands were among the most important targets of this attack. Simultaneously, hundreds of commandos and soldiers of the army's ground forces in Tehran were prepared to seize important points in the capital such as radio and television, ministries and key institutions, Mehrabad Airport, and other strategic centers upon receiving a signal. The goal of Shapur Bakhtiar and the leaders of 'Negab' from this coup was to overthrow the Islamic Republic and bring a transitional and temporary government led by Bakhtiar to power so that this government could prepare for a referendum. According to Mark Gaziourouski, an American historian who has conducted extensive research on Operation Negab, despite the fact that the planners and supporters of this operation were 'national' and 'secular democratic' individuals, in the referendum they envisioned, Iranians would be free to choose between a monarchy, the Islamic Republic, a secular democratic republic, or any other type of government they wished. However, the Noujeh Coup, Operation Negab, or Shahrokhi was stifled before it began. The operation was leaked. There are multiple accounts of how this plan was leaked. Mohammad Ali Amoui, a leader of the Tudeh Party, says that his party and he provided information about the operation to Ayatollah Khomeini. Said Hajarian states that he learned about the matter in the intelligence unit of the army at that time and, with the involvement of security forces and Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, who was then the Islamic Revolutionary Court's judge, suppressed the coup. Mr. Reyshahri confirmed in his memoirs Hajarian's role in informing him. Abolhassan Banisadr, the then President, Mohsen Rezai, the then commander of the IRGC intelligence, and Ali Khamenei, the then Deputy Minister of Defense, each introduce themselves as one of the main factors in informing other officials of the regime about the coup. Mehran Kolbadi states that Mousa Khiyabani, one of the senior commanders of the People's Mojahedin Organization, informed Abolhassan Banisadr about the matter, and Banisadr informed Mr. Khomeini. With the leak of Operation Shahrokhi, hundreds of active participants, including several pilots and army commanders, were arrested. The exact number of those arrested is not known. They were sentenced to death in rapid trials, and their sentences were executed. According to Mr. Kolbadi, the immaturity and reliance on unreliable individuals were among the main reasons for the failure of the operation. He identifies one unreliable individual as Manoochehr Ghorbanifar, who was supposed to supply the operation's weapons but did not do so. Manoochehr Ghorbanifar later became one of the intermediaries for the secret purchase of weapons from the U.S. and Israel for Iran during the war with Iraq. Mehran Kolbadi describes Mohammad Baqir Bani Amiri as a 'correct and patriotic' individual who, due to lacking a high military and security background, 'was not the man for this field'. A few months after the widespread execution of individuals, especially military personnel involved in Operation Shahrokhi and the extensive internal cleansing in the army by the Islamic Republic, Iraq began its attack on Iran. The disintegrated Iranian army had no coherent defense capability. Khorramshahr fell to the occupation of the Iraqi army less than six weeks after the war began.