Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – September 26, 2003

I was at home, studying the events of early 1981 for an interview I have with Mr. [Abbas] Salimi-Namin, [Director of the Office for the Studies and Compilation of Iran's History], about the history of the Revolution. This section concerns the events that led to the removal of [Abolhassan] Bani-Sadr, as well as reading about the condition of the martyr Mohammadreza Shafiei-Qomi, whose body is said to have been exhumed intact from the soil in Iraq after 16 years, and [also] reading his mother's statements on this matter.

The United Nations announced that it was withdrawing its non-Iraqi personnel from Iraq due to the lack of security, which has angered the United States. At Al-Khalil Mosque in Baghdad, an explosion left eight dead and 20 injured, and several operations have left a number of Iraqi civilians and occupiers dead and wounded.

The arrest of two members of the Guantanamo prison guard force in the United States has caused a stir. The two men are Arabic translators named "[Ahmad] al-Halabi" and "[Ahmad] Fathi," and they have been accused of espionage. The possibility of Syrian involvement has also been raised because one of them is of Syrian origin.

In Japan, two powerful earthquakes struck within an hour of each other, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, with the epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, 100 kilometers off the eastern coast of Hokkaido Island. They caused widespread destruction, injured hundreds of people, killed several people, and massive sea waves led to the evacuation of 41,000 residential units. A train derailed, a refinery caught fire, and the power went out.