Having sustained attacks from the army, government thugs, the civil police and the secret police known as SAVAK for months, the mobilised masses ‘aggressively struck back at the armed forces’ in the autumn of 1978. In Amol, they equipped themselves with bows and poisoned arrows, overwhelmed the garrisons and seized their weapons; in Dezful, they dropped bags of sand on patrolling soldiers, who were then jumped upon and disarmed; in Hamadan, they burnt down government buildings until the city ‘came to resemble an ancient ruin’;
