February 10, 1979

Iranian Revolution

Iranian military declares neutrality as Bakhtiar's government collapses

A government can retain ministries and a prime minister on paper yet lose effective power once its army returns to barracks.

The military council convenes at 10:20 a.m.

On 11 February 1979, Iran's Supreme Military Council convened and declared the armed forces neutral in the struggle between Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar's government and Khomeini's revolutionaries, ordering units back to their barracks.

Chief of Staff Abbas Gharabaghi agreed to withdraw the army from Tehran, leaving the capital under revolutionary control, according to a U.S. Embassy report written the next day. The commonly listed date of 10 February is one day early for this decision.

5:45 p.m.: the radio changes hands

Revolutionaries occupied Tehran Radio, which announced the fall of Bakhtiar's government and identified itself as the voice of the revolution.

Revolutionary forces took government buildings and police stations, opened prisons, seized weapons and arrested prominent Pahlavi officials. Contemporary reporting counted more than 200 dead and 800 wounded in Tehran from the final two days of fighting.

What did and did not end

The crisis had begun with fighting between pro-Khomeini Air Force homafaran and the loyalist Imperial Guard at Doshan Tappeh, after which armed civilians joined in and Bakhtiar's expanded curfew was openly defied.

The army declared neutrality; it did not formally transfer power. Bakhtiar vanished from public view and Mehdi Bazargan's provisional government became the practical authority. The Islamic Republic itself was proclaimed only on 1 April, after the 30–31 March referendum.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 1979-02-11.

What the sources leave uncertain

The supplied date, February 10, is one day early for the decisive military declaration. Fighting escalated on February 9–10, but the neutrality order and governmental collapse occurred on February 11.
The slug’s “10–11” wording reasonably describes the final fighting, while the event title’s army-withdrawal action belongs specifically to February 11.
Contemporary casualty figures were provisional and should be attributed to the reporting source, not presented as final audited totals.