NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DAILY MONDAY 7 JANUARY 1980

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 19, 2007
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: January 7, 1980
• Content Type: REPORT

f
"`"t'' Director of
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
11~f+vn~~y,
Top Secret
Top Secret
Copy 421
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Briefs and Comments
Syria: More Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Bolivia: Challenges to Interim President . . . . . . . . 10
Nicaragua-USSR: Soviet Diplomats Arrive. . . . . . . . . 12
The Overnight Reports, printed on yellow paper as the final section,
will often contain materials that update other articles in the
Daily.
7 January 1980
25X1
25X1
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Next 3 Page(s) In Document Denied
Iq
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Violence continued throughout Iran over the weekend.
In Tabriz, one person was killed and scores wounded
as fighting broke out between followers of Ayatollahs
Khomeini and Shariat-Madari. Sixteen people were killed
in similar clashes in Maragheh just south of Tabriz.
Reacting to the growing violence, Shariat-Madari has once
again backed away from a serious confrontation with
Khomeini by renouncing support for the Azarbayjani-based
Muslim People's Republic Party. He has called for calm
in order to preserve national unity.
In the port city of Bandar-e Lengeh fighting between
Sunni and Shiite Muslims resulted in at least 28 dead
and over 100 wounded. The head of the local Islamic
Revolutionary Committees in Esfahan was assassinated
Saturday. Spokesmen for minority groups there had been
demanding the departure of Revolutionary Guards from
the city. Minister of State Foruhar, a presidential can-
didate and member of the government's delegation to the
Kurds, barely escaped an assassination attempt in Tehran
Saturday.
Afghan nationals temporarily occupied the Afghan
Embassy in Tehran yesterday; they took 14 hostages and
demanded the expulsion of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
They released the hostages and abandoned the embassy on
orders from the Revolutionary Council.
support for the revolutionary govern-
ment by members of Tehran's influential bazaar is waning.
The businessmen are disturbed by the continuing economic
deterioration and have become increasingly critical of
the government's granting of important posts to poorly
educated and ill-qualified persons. They also are con-
cerned over what they perceive to be growing Arab, and
particularly Palestinian, influence with Khomeini.
Top Secret
7 January 1980
25X1
25X1
25X1
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Presidential Campaign
Khomeini has decided to turn over to the people the
task of determining the eligibility of presidential can-
didates. It is not clear how this will be accomplished.
The Ayatollah said that he will not endorse any of the
more than 100 candidates. One of the leading candidates,
Admiral Madani, said yesterday that unnamed persons are
disseminating false reports about him and that he might
withdraw from the race.
Economic Significance of Ethnic Unrest
Iran's economy will be in turmoil regardless of the
status of US-Iranian relations if Khomeini cannot quiet
the widespread ethnic unrest. The areas of recent ethnic
unrest are of major economic or strategic importance.
Khuzestan Province, the home of a large Arab popu-
lation, produces nearly 70 percent of the country's crude
oil. Kordestan, Azarbayjan-e-Khavari, and Azarbayjan-e-
Bakhtari Provinces--with large Kurdish and Azarbayjani
populations--are important agricultural areas that ac-
count for a large share of food production. Iran's main
rail and road links with Europe and the USSR run through
the latter two provinces. In addition, Tabriz, the capi-
tal of Azarbayjan-e-Khavari, is an important industrial
center. Baluchestan va Sistan Province in southwest
Iran contains the strategically important road and rail
links with Pakistan. The rail link terminates at Zahedan,
the provincial capital and the site of recent fighting.
Officials in Tehran not only have to worry about
the autonomy aspects of ethnic unrest, but also must be
concerned with the indirect effects of such dissidence.
Unrest in the northwestern provinces disrupts imports
from Europe and the USSR that central authorities need
to keep popular discontent in check. While Khuzestan
Province in the southwest has been relatively quiet
since summer, sporadic sabotage of oil facilities con-
tinues. This destruction could easily worsen and
threaten oil production, particularly if Iraq steps
up agitation among the Arab population.
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Urban terrorists continue to undermine President Assad's
minority AZawite regime.
Security conditions in Aleppo are deteriorating
further, despite the recent deployment there of about
3,000 troops from the Defense Companies headed by the
President's brother Rifaat. Gun battles that previously
occurred only at night are now reportedly happening dur-
ing daylight hours. Numerous terrorist attacks on se-
curity patrols have also been reported in Damascus,
ending several weeks of relative calm.
The Sunni Muslim extremists thought to be responsi-
ble for most of the violence may have timed the renewed
attacks in the capital to embarrass the President during
the two-week-long Baath Party congress that ended yes-
terday. Some local observers believe that with the con-
gress concluded, security forces under Rifaat's direc-
tion will initiate widespread repression in an attempt to
crush domestic opposition.
7 January 1980
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Iq
Next 1 Page(s) In Document Denied
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Despite his recent success in surviving a series of coalition
crises, Prime Minister Begin will continue to encounter serious
challenges stemming from Israel's massive economic problems, his
uncertain health, and cabinet divisions over Jewish settlements
in the West Bank.
Begin has held his fractious coalition together
primarily by exploiting a widely shared reluctance to
risk an early national election. Progress by the newly
appointed Finance Minister, Yigael Hurvitz, in implement-
ing economic austerity and in redressing Israel's balance-
of-payments deficit has provided some assistance recently.
Hurvitz is unlikely, however, to have any early success
in curbing Israel's triple-digit inflation rate unless he
wins support for real wage cuts from the huge labor feder-
ation dominated by the opposition Labor Party.
Press reports about Begin's declining physical and
mental capacities continue to encourage jockeying for
position among potential successors within the dominant
Likud bloc. While unwilling to confront Begin openly,
some leading coalition figures probably would prefer
that Begin resign and support a reconstituted coalition
under Defense Minister Weizman or some other politically
attractive Likud leader. Begin's personal popularity
has dropped to under 30 percent, an alltime low.
Begin's next crisis may come in February, when a
twice-extended deadline expires for relocating the Gush
Emunim settlement of Elon Moreh. Now located near
Nabulus on the occupied West Bank, the settlement is to
be transferred to a new site about six kilometers north.
ready, the government's stability is likely to be
threatened once again if the Gush settlers--who say
they will not move--refuse to leave peacefully.
7 January 1980
25X1
25X1
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
BOLIVIA: Challenges to Interim President
Interim President GueiZer's seven-week-old administration has
weathered its initial challenges in the face of continuing opposi-
tion from military and querulous political factions.
General Luis Garcia Meza, commander of the military
academy in La Paz, presented the government with its
first serious problem by inspiring conservative officers
to reject a Gueiler-chosen high command. The President
replaced her Army commander with one more acceptable to
Garcia Meza's group but stood firm on her other appoint-
ments. Garcia Meza
epitomizes Gueiler's dilemma: how to formulate policy
decisions without antagonizing conservatives in the mil-
itary.
By implementing a necessary but politically unpop-
ular economic austerity program--including a 25-percent
peso devaluation and price increases for certain key
goods and services--Gueiler has secured needed interna-
tional financial assistance. She used her friendship
with key labor leader Juan Lechin to help calm violent
opposition to these moves from labor and peasant groups,
and compromised on some price increases without jeopar-
dizing the stabilization program. Nonetheless, new
increases or opposition attacks on the economic package
could threaten the domestic calm. Anti-US demonstrations
could occur as well because of Bolivian opposition to
planned sales of tin from US stockpileUNCODED
Gueiler has called for elections in July, and she
must now address issues crucial to the election process.
She favors general elections, but those Congressmen who
took office only last summer oppose them. Gueiler must
also prod Congress to establish clearer criteria for the
selection of a new chief executive to serve a full four-
year term. A prolonged deadlock over this issue would
endanger the timetable for this year's contests and could
prompt further coup plotting.
7 January 1980
25X1
25X1
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
After a year of negotiations with Islamabad the International
Monetary Fund has agreed to extend to Pakistan a $163 million credit
for critical balance-of-payments support.
Because the credit is coming from the IMF Trust
Fund, Islamabad will be able to avoid the stringent
economic measures the IMF frequently requires--and which,
in Pakistan's case, would include a devaluation--when it
provides financial assistance through its other facili-
ties. The IMF was encouraged by Pakistan's reasonably
good economic performance last year. The economy was
buoyed by a good wheat crop, rising export earnings,
and a continuing high level of remittances from Paki-
stanis employed abroad. Islamabad promised to curb
short-term borrowing abroad this year and to limit its
budget deficit but is under no obligation to do so.
Even with the new IMF loan, Pakistan will face seri-
ous foreign exchange constraints this year unless there
are additional loans or debt relief. The government is
unlikely to adopt a restrictive financial program in the
face of rising domestic and regional tensions over
Islam, the Soviet threat from Afghanistan, and tribal
instability.
7 January 1980
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
NICARAGUA-USSR: Soviet Diplomats Arrive
Eleven Soviet diplomats arrived in Managua on Friday,
and another 20 were expected on Saturday. The Soviet
Embassy may eventually have 100 representatives, accord-
ing to a press report. The Soviet Ambassador's name has
not been disclosed.
7 January 1980
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
(The items in the Overnight Reports section have not
been coordinated within the Intelligence Community.
They are prepared overnight by the Office of Current
Operations with analyst comment where possible from the
production offices of NFAC.)
There is nothing of significance to report.
Top Secret
13 25X1
7 January 1980
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
 Top Secret
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6
Top Secret
Approved For Release 2007/10/19: CIA-RDP82T00466R000100010019-6