Being Trained in Hezbollah

We needed some training to ready to fight against the regime consciously. So, we scheduled program for the needed trainings such as martial arts, shooting and ideological discussions somewhere around brick kilns near Khavaran Road. We (Abu Sharif, Sepasi Ashtiani and I) would go to places far behind the public eyes in order to save any human or animal from the possible hurts of our shooting and also not to make any suspicion.
In another program, Abba Agha Zamani conducted Arabic Language classes first in Haj Amjad Mosque[1] and then in Amir-al-Mu’menin Mosque[2]. These classes were free and in a new style and beside the call Agha Zamani would ask the participants to memorize some Koranic verses particularly the ones about Jihad.
Ayatollah Musavi Ardebili – the prayer leader clergy at Amir-al-Mu’menin Mosque- despite knowing Abbass had been a political prisoner, had agreed to hold these classes and provide the expenses for publishing the news about them in the press from the mosques budget. Then the other classes were also introduced and expanded. After some time, Jamal Nikou Ghadam[3], Javad Mansouri and Abbas Douzdouzani accepted to conduct these classes. These classes would hold in a 3-story building belonging to the mosque which was located beside it. I would participate in some of these classes and would write down the weaknesses and the positive points and later discuss about them in the meetings of Hezbollah central members.
However, my main job there in theses class was to find capable people to join Hezbollah.

We would follow three goals by this method:
Proselytization and conducting cultural activities;
Recognizing capable people to be invited to Hezbollah;
Direct and use the capacities of people.

We would the knowledge and experience of some of friends and teachers in these classes in a way that they were not aware that they were working for political organization. Of course, I should admit that their intentions were all just for the God’s sake and nothing else.
Agha Zamani wad the director of all classes and his presence would flourish them. In the spring of 1968 and at the advent of beginning the classes Abbas’s father got sick so hard. The doctors said that he had to be sent abroad for treatment. Since he had to have somebody along with for this trip, Abbas went ready to go with him to Germany because of his knowledge of German language. However, he had problems to get out of the country; so, Ayatollah Ardebili got some help from other members of the Mosque’s board of trustees and managed to remove the impediments for his departure and this way Abbas went.

This trip took two months. In Germany he could make contacts with Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and individuals like Hussein Rezai and Hassan Massali[4] who had Marxist orientations. He could gather useful information about how to send people to Lebanon to pass guerilla fighting trainings and also about safe houses in Europe and Asia and safe paths to reach militia training centers.

Abbas Agha Zamani’s trip to Germany and later Sa’id Mohammadi Fateh’s brought some difficulties for me.