Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – March 18, 1988

I was at home. I did the backlog. I gave Ayatollah Khamenei materials from the Fajr 10 operation for [use in] Friday prayer sermons.

Mr. Mohsen Rezaei announced that two groups of Iraqi soldiers and the counter-revolution of Komleh were discovered and destroyed in the region. The casualties and martyrs of Halabja's chemical bombing by Iraqis are many, and people have left the city and come to Iran out of fear.

The prime minister said that he created a commission to manage the new Iraqi immigrants from the Halabja region and asked me to pay for it. I remitted 20 million tomans and it was decided to take care of property and furniture.

Mr. Aghamohammadi reported the situation over the phone and asked for permission to take part of the people of Halabja to the camps in Kerman and Khorasan. Mr. Amir Iraqi came to advise on the printing of his father's works and help for the charity foundation.

Mr. [Majid] Ghasemi, the head of the central bank, came and demanded an increase in the price of gold backing the banknote. The imam has assigned the decision on this matter to the heads of the forces, because it is not expedient to bring it up in the tribune of the parliament to be abused by the enemies. The second item is his demand to lower the currency and gold backing of banknotes from 25% to 17%, which was supposed to be brought up in the meeting of the heads of state.

Mr. Natiq Noori came to complete the election list. With Mr. Kharazi, I made some remarks about the propaganda axis of the newly liberated city and the captured counter-revolutionaries. I watched TV more at night. A good movie of Halabja was released.

Western news media have begun to acknowledge our victory. Today, at the end of Friday prayers, Iraq fired six or four missiles at Tehran, only one of which was effective. We also retaliated.