Mostafa Chamran

Mostafa Chamran Savei (1932 – 21 June 1981) was an Iranian scientist who served as defence minister and member of parliament, as well as commander of paramilitary volunteers in Iran–Iraq War. He was vice president and the defense minister of Iran. He was killed in action during the course of the war.

Education
Born in 1932 in Tehran, he became a young student of Ayatollah Taleqani and Morteza Motahari. He graduated from Tehran University.

In the late 1960s, he moved to the United States for higher education, obtaining an M.S. degree from the Texas A&M University. He then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Physics in Plasma in 1963 from the University of California, Berkeley .

He was then hired as a senior research staff scientist at Bell Laboratories and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

He was fluent in Persian, English, Arabic, French, and German.

Revolutionary activities
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Chamran became politically active, and became a leading and founding member of the Islamic revolutionary movement in the Middle East, organizing and training guerrillas and revolutionary forces in Algeria, Egypt, Syria, especially Amal Movement in southern Lebanon.

Return to Iran
With the Islamic Revolution taking place in Iran, Chamran's career took a sharp turn. He was appointed commander of Iran's Pasdaran, as well as Iran's Minister of Defense, personal military aide to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the latter's representative to the Supreme Council of Defense. In March 1980, he was elected into the Majlis of Iran (the Iranian Parliament) as a representative from the city of Tehran.

Martyrdom
He was killed by an Iraqi mortar in combat in Khuzestan Province (a region in Southwestern Iran, bordering Iraq) on June 21, 1981 as the Iran–Iraq War was raging on.

He was later given a hero status and many buildings and streets in Iran, as well a major expressway, were named after him.