Result of Algiers Agreement between Shah and Saddam

Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2023-5-17

In the winter of 1353 (1075), the Iraqi army was exhausted under the blows of the armed forces of the Kurdish people, who had been completely strengthened by the Shah's regime. Tens of thousands of Iraqi officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers were in the prisons of the Kurdish region. The Ba'athist regime had made several governments, including the US, a mediator for reconciliation with the Shah's regime, and was willing to give up all its claims to Arvand River, the Persian Gulf, the border areas, and Khuzestan. Also, the regime agreed not to allow the Shah's opponents to use Iraqi soil against him. The mediations took place in secret. The parties were approaching the final agreement with the mediation of the Algerian government. I was unaware of what was happening behind the scene.

In Esfand of 1353 (March 1975), I left for Baghdad to visit the holy shrines and meet Imam Khomeini. In Baghdad, and in the hotel where I stayed, they put me under surveillance. When Saddam and Shah met in the capital of Algeria and signed the famous 1975 agreement on 15^th of Esfand 1353(March 6, 1975), they took me from the hotel to the detention center. A month later, they started interrogating and torturing me. The four main questions were: 1- How and where did you leave Iraq when you entered Iraq under the nickname "Hekmat" a few years ago? 2- Why did you distribute Seyed Khomeini's leaflets in different cities of Iraq and why did you print them in Lebanon? 3- What was the purpose of your trips to Libya? 4- Who are your friends and colleagues in Iran?

Between my trip to Iraq and the previous one, a network of religious retired Iraqi officers and civilians who had connections with Libya ad been discovered. The intelligence organization of the Ba'ath Party had penetrated this network and obtained a lot of information about the movements of its members. This network had bought a typewriter from Mr. Salehi Fahmi and used it to print secret leaflets. He had also been arrested. He was sentenced to some time in prison and others were all or mostly executed. During my trips to Iraq, I used to go to his bookstore in Al-Rashid Street in Baghdad. Last time, and before his arrest, I also went to his house. His brother, Sadegh Fahmi, who fled from Iraq to Lebanon in 1348 (1970) and was in contact with anti-Ba'ath Sunni Muslim officers, was always with me, or was in close contact. In my case, the Iraqi security apparatus suspected that I might have been involved in promoting the work of this network during my trips to Libya. In any case, they had a good excuse to get information about how I communicated with the Libyan government regarding the Shah's regime.

I was in the prison of the Ba'athists for four months. I had not told anyone that I was going to Iraq. I had told only one person that I was going to Lebanon. For this reason, my friends and colleagues thought that I had been kidnapped from Lebanon by a secret SAVAK unit and taken to Tehran. The efforts by the security forces of Al-Fat'h to find me had also failed. The rumor of my abduction by SAVAK was spread not only among the Iranians abroad but also in the circles of Muslim fighters inside. This situation prompted the Ba'athists to release me earlier in order to preserve their reputation. After being released from the Ba'ath prison, and the reconciliation of the Ba'athists with the Shah, and in the same two-three days when I was in Baghdad, some clerics who were in Najaf came to visit me. I informed one of them about my torture and interrogation about printing and distributing the Imam's leaflets.

Source: Farsi, Jalaleddin, Dark Angles, Tehran, Hadith Publications, 1373 (1995), PP. 350-351