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 I have  read various pieces by Dr Mehdi Khaz'ali and listened to various  interviews with him, and must say that he comes over as a fantasist. He  just says things that some people badly want to hear, and that seems to  be the only thing that keeps him afloat in the media. Regarding Mr  Ahmadinejad not having served in the War, it is not true, but from a  technical point of view Mr Khaz'ali's story may contain some element of  truth. The fact is that Mr Ahmadinejad was not fighting as a regular  army soldier or officer, but was working party as a military logistic  engineer and partly as a military intelligence officer from behind  enemy's line. If my memory is not failing, during the War years he spent  some time in Kirkuk,  Iraq, amongst members of the Patriotic  Union of Kurdistan or Kurdistan  Democratic Party of Iraq  - both groups  were fighting alongside Iran against Saddam Hossein. The fact that after  the War he, i.e. Mr Ahmadinejad, became the Deputy to Governor-General of Maku  and Khoy  (West Azarbaijan Province has a sizeable Kurdish  population), and later Advisor to Governor-General of Kurdistan,  have direct relationship to his War-time experience in Iraqi Kurdistan.  Thus, indeed Mr Mohsen Rezai may not have been technically wrong in  saying that Mr Ahmadinejad has not been ""at the front"" (assuming that  indeed the alleged statement is due to Mr Rezai), but to say that Mr  Ahmadinejad has lied about his War efforts, is just a false and  defamatory statement. Let us assume for a moment that Mr Ahmadinejad has  lied about his War efforts. Is it at all conceivable that a young man  from Tehran would get so early on so high up in the highest  administrative offices of Maku, Khoy and Kurdistan, from all places? As I  said earlier, Mehdi Khaz'ali is just a fantasist who seems to believe  in his own fantasies (there are some videos on YouTube  in which he says things that no one in his position could possibly  know). "