"Savak" redirects here. For the band, see Savak (band).
1957–1979 Iranian secret police agency
Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State
Sâzmân-ē Ettelâ'ât va Amniyat-ē Kešvar سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور
Agency overview
Formed
20 March 1957 (1957-03-20)
Dissolved
12 February 1979 (1979-02-12)
Type
Secret police
Headquarters
Tehran, Iran
Employees
5,000 at peak[1]
Agency executives
Teymur Bakhtiar (first)
Nasser Moghaddam (last)
SAVAK (Persian: ساواک), an acronym of Sāzmān-e Ettelā'āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar (سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور, lit.'Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State'),[2] was the secret police of the Imperial State of Iran. It was established in Tehran in 1957 and continued to operate until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when it was dissolved by Iranian prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who was assassinated by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1991.
At peak, there were around 5,000 SAVAK agents operating under the Pahlavi dynasty.[1] Iranian-American scholar and ex-politician Gholam Reza Afkhami estimates that SAVAK had between 4,000 and 6,000 members,[3] while TIME stated in a publication on 19 February 1979 that the agency had 5,000 members.[4]
^ abAndrew Scott Cooper,The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran Hardcover – July 19, 2016 ISBN 0805098976, p. 231
^Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information, Bureau of Public Affairs. "Summary". 2001-2009.state.gov.
^Gholam Reza Afkhami, Life and Times of the Shah (University of California Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-520-25328-5), p. 386.
^SAVAK: "Like the CIA". Feb. 19, 1979 Archived 2009-06-21 at the Wayback Machine.
SAVAK (Persian: ساواک), an acronym of Sāzmān-e Ettelā'āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar (سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور, lit. 'Bureau for Intelligence and Security...
an Iranian military officer who served as the fourth and final chief of SAVAK from 6 June 1978 to 12 February 1979. He assumed the position after the...
various reports that SAVAK agents were present at the scene. Hence, his death was attributed to the Shah's secret police, SAVAK. His father later described...
opponents with the help of Iran's security and intelligence secret police, SAVAK. Such opponents included leftists and Islamists. By the mid-1970s, relying...
militants started the fire, while anti-Pahlavi protesters falsely blamed SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, for setting the fire. Even though Islamic extremists...
Gorba, born May 9, 1945) is an expatriate Iranian arms dealer and former SAVAK agent. According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Ghorbanifar...
Iranian general and the founder and head of SAVAK from 1956 to 1961 when he was dismissed by the Shah. In 1970, SAVAK agents assassinated him in Iraq. He was...
secular state, arbitrary arrests and torture by his secret police, the SAVAK, were used for crushing political opposition. Due to the 1973 oil crisis...
1917 – 18 May 1987) was an Iranian military officer who was the deputy head of SAVAK, the powerful Iranian intelligence agency during the Pahlavi era. He was...
February 1979) was an Iranian military officer who served as the director of SAVAK, the Iranian intelligence agency during the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi...
tanks and paratroopers. In Tehran, demonstrators attacked police stations, SAVAK offices and government buildings, including ministries. The surprised government...
fire — claimed by the opposition as having been orchestrated by Pahlavi's SAVAK — came to serve as a catalyst for a popular revolutionary movement across...
States on HBO. Karl Savak, a "rogue FBI agent", is attempting to steal and sell military weapons. When stealing weaponry, one of Savak's henchmen, Marcus...
an Iranian intelligence officer for the Shah's SAVAK. He was the head of the provincial offices of SAVAK in Fars and Khorasan provinces, and later head...
of the third national movement had increasingly worried SAVAK (ساواک). On May 22, 1965, Savak arrested Mostafa Mallad and Bahmanpour Shareaty. In the...
his political involvement with the Mohammad Reza Pahlavi government and SAVAK, but also his relationship with Ruhollah Khomeini. Hassan Pakravan, son...
including Libya, Iran and Syria, have highly developed operations as well. SAVAK, the secret police of the Pahlavi dynasty, was particularly feared by Iranian...
told Khomeini: "Your prisons are far worse than those of the Shah and his SAVAK." After a letter of his complaints was leaked to Europe and broadcast on...
Sar) is an Iranian lawyer, former SAVAK top deputy under the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He was in charge of SAVAK’s second division which was called...
the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran...
influential in publicizing the title. Since he was under surveillance by SAVAK (Iran's pre-revolution intelligence agency), the Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti...
ongoing political climate in Iran during the '70s, he was never prosecuted by SAVAK as they didn't have files on him unlike his brothers. As the struggles intensified...
premier Hassan Ali Mansur was assassinated and the internal security service, SAVAK, became more violently active. In the 1970s, leftist guerilla groups such...
active. He had been imprisoned by SAVAK, the Shah's secret police, and bore scars which he said were from torture in SAVAK custody. The other members of his...
in Abadan that was erroneously blamed on the Iranian intelligence agency SAVAK. The Guadeloupe Conference saw Pahlavi's Western allies state that there...
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