SAVAK
1957–1979 Iranian secret police agency / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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.
Sâzmân-ē Ettelâ'ât va Amniyat-ē Kešvar سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور | |
Agency overview | |
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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 |
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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]