Iranian Cleric Who Helped Create Hezbollah Dies Of COVID

Ali-Akbar Mohtashamipur, one of the Iranian officials who played a major role in the formation of Lebanon’s Hezbollah in 1980s has died of Covid-19 in Tehran, local media reported on Monday.

The 75-year-old cleric was Iran’s ambassador in Syria from 1982-86 and is believed to have played a key role in the creation of Hezbollah. He later became interior minister and an advisor to reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

Mohatashamipur was known as a staunch anti-American who opposed Western influence in Muslim countries. In 1990, he defended Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait on religious grounds, calling it a war against infidels. It is not clear why he became part of the reform camp in late 1990s and established a reformist newspaper that was closed down by hardliner courts during Khatami’s presidency.

The ardent revolutionary who was an active Islamic militant during the monarchy, is said to have gone into self-exile in Iraq in 2010, where he lived until he contracted the coronavirus and was brought to Tehran for medical care where he died.

It is also believed Mohatashamipur was the target of an Israeli assassination attempt while he was ambassador in Damascus in 1984 where he received a booby-trapped package that exploded, severely wounding him.

Source – https://iranintl.com/en/iran-in-brief/iranian-cleric-who-helped-create-hezbollah-dies-covid