1981 Iranian Prime Minister's office bombing

rdf:langString 1981 Iranian Prime Minister's office bombing

rdf:langString Masoud Keshmiri

rdf:langString The Iranian PM building after the explosion

rdf:langString Tehran, Iran

rdf:langString Iranian officials

rdf:langString Bombing

rdf:langString The office of Mohammad Javad Bahonar, Prime Minister of Iran, was bombed on 30 August 1981 by the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), killing Bahonar, President Mohammad Ali Rajai, and six other Iranian government officials. The briefcase bombing came two months after the Hafte Tir bombing, which killed over seventy senior Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Mohammad Beheshti, then Iran's second-highest official. According to sources, nobody "knew exactly who had been in the room at the time of the detonation." Eventually, there were three participants that had been unaccounted for that including Masoud Keshmiri, Rajai, and Bahonar. It was later revealed that both Rajai and Bahonar had died in the explosion. According to Albert Benliot, Ayatollah Khomeini charged the MEK with responsibility for the bombing, "however, there has been much speculation among academics and observers that these bombings may have actually been planned by senior Islamic Republican Party (IRP) leaders, including later Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, to rid themselves of rivals within the IRP." Afterward, the interim presidential council announced five national days of mourning, and Iran's Parliament selected Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani as the next prime minister.Parliament held an election on 2 October 1981 to elect Bahonar's successor;