Khomeini Has Digestive Tract Surgery

Iran’s 89-year-old leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, underwent surgery Tuesday to control bleeding in his digestive tract, Tehran Radio and Television reported.

The broadcasts, monitored in Nicosia, quoted a statement issued by the ayatollah’s office that said the operation was successful and that the condition of the founder of Iran’s Islamic state was “completely satisfactory.”

Ahmed Khomeini, the ayatollah’s son, said the imam’s condition was good.

“The doctors are very pleased with the success of the operation. His condition is very good and there is no cause for concern. People must rest assured,” the younger Khomeini told Iranian television.

Iraj Fazel, one of Khomeini’s surgeons, said on television that the ayatollah’s heart and kidneys were functioning well and his blood pressure and pulse were normal after the operation.

Pictures showing the ayatollah in white pajamas and black skull cap walking in a hospital corridor, apparently before the operation, were broadcast by Iranian television.

Later he was shown sitting in bed and murmuring verses from the Koran, a tube connected to the back of his right hand and yellow prayer beads in his left hand.

According to reports circulating in Europe, Khomeini is critically ill, but Iranian officials have regularly issued statements declaring him to be in good health. Some people who have been granted rare audiences with the ayatollah say that he moves with a slow, shuffling step.

An Associated Press report from Paris said that the Ayatollah Mehdi Kouhani, leader of the Shiite Muslims in Europe, had called to say he was told that Khomeini had lost a large amount of blood and was in “precarious” condition.

Heart Attack in 1980

Khomeini suffered a mild heart attack in 1980, a year after his followers forced the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from Iran’s throne. No other physical problems have been confirmed since then. In the past few years, however, the elderly leader has remained in his home in suburban Tehran.

Analysts of Iranian affairs have reported that Khomeini, who holds supreme religious and state powers in Iran, was shaken and embittered by the collapse of Iranian forces in the eight-year war with Iraq, which ended in a truce last August. Recently, there has been a struggle for political leadership as the country’s affairs appeared to drift.

In February, Khomeini roused himself and sharpened the political debate with an accusation of blasphemy against novelist Salman Rushdie, the Muslim-born author of “The Satanic Verses,” and demanded his execution. Subsequent political developments in Iran have shown that the elderly leader is still in charge and intends to keep Iran on a fundamentalist course so long as he lives.

Several politicians who had advocated strengthening relations with the West in the period of postwar reconstruction have been forced to resign their official posts.

Khomeini’s surgery highlights the question of succession in the leadership of Iran’s 10-year-old Islamic revolution. In March, he withdrew his blessing for his chosen successor, the Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, who had been critical of a wave of arrests and executions in Iran. Khomeini’s politically powerful followers are wrangling for the reins of government, but none appears likely to succeed Khomeini in holding both spiritual and temporal power.