IRAN TRAINING KAMIKAZE PILOTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940082-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 2011
• Sequence Number: 82
• Publication Date: February 27, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940082-9
27 January 1986
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ATTA
Iran Training Kamikaze Pilots
I n an ominous replay of the closing days of World
War II, Iranian pilots have been trained to fly
light planes loaded with explosives on suicide
missions against U.S. warships in the
Mediterranean or land facilities throughout the
Middle East.
Accordin to our intelligence sources-including
an Iranian defector-the Young ots are as
fanatically dedicated to the Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini as Japanese kamikaze pilots were to
Emperor Hirohito in 1945. The kamikazes destroyed 36 U.S. warships and damaged 368 in
the battle ot wawa.
What makes the possibility of suicide attacks on
the Sixth Fleet particularly galling is the fact that
the aircraft that would be used were made in West
Germany and Switzerland. The two types of planes
may be able to evade the U.S. warships' radar ,
protection; on land, it would be virtually impossible
to protect American embassies against an airborne
suicide attack.
Up to now, Iranian-controlled Shiite terrorists
have been using hijackings and suicidal truck
bombers. But the kamikaze force, potentially far
more dangerous, has been steadily growing.
Indeed, our sources believe that only the
continuation of Iran's war with Iraq has kept
Khomeini from unleashing his suicide pilots against
U.S. targets.
The Iranian kamikazes were first trained on
powered gliders in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa
Valley of eastern Lebanon. The Syrians bought the
aircraft from West German firms in. 1981-82,
intending to lend them to Palestinian guerrillas. But
the 1982 Syrian split with the Palestine Liberation
Organization spelled an end to that scheme.
So the Syrians offered the gliders to the Iraniae:.
Revolutionary Guards, who had been invited into
the Bekaa that year.
Top-secret minutes of a high-level meeting in
Tehran in mid-1984 disclose that the Iranian
leaders were enthusiastic about expanding the
kamikaze unit, but dissatisfied with the
performance of the West German gliders.
The replacement they chose was the Swiss
Pilatus PC7, usually used for crop dusting. Iran "'-
bought 80 Pilatus planes in 1984; the Swiss .
maintain they thought the planes would be used fm-
agriculture, rescue missions and pilot training.
The Swiss were alarmed when they belatedly
discovered that some of the technical documents"""'
shipped to Iran included instructions on converting"';
the PC7 into a warplane.
The kamikazes began training in the Swiss planes
at Bushire, the main Iranian fighter-bomber airbase
on the Persian Gulf. Later they were sent to Won
San, North Korea, for further training.
But even the minimal flying skills required of
suicide pilots proved beyond several of the IraniaXr
volunteers, who perished during low-level flight
exercises. One who survived was Hushang
Mortezai, who defected the first chance he got.
Now hiding in London, Mortezai has told his
debriefers it's not surprising that he was the only"''
one of Khomeini's kamikazes to defect. "I must tetP' ?
you that mk comrades are 100 percent fanatics," h~
explained. "They are preparing to make their
strikes and nothing will stop them."
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940082-9