Islamic Guards Warn Reformists

An elite military wing in Iran warned pro-reform leaders and the press that any attempt to undermine Iran’s Islamic ideology would be met with “Islamic violence.” The strongly worded statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps conforms to the increasingly strident tone taken by hard-liners against reformists who swept parliamentary elections in February. The corps, a military force separate from the regular army, has hundreds of thousands of men in arms and its own air force and weapons industry. President Mohammad Khatami and his allies want to loosen the strict Islamic laws and social restrictions that have been in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought the Shiite clergy to power.