Khomeini ordered those arrested for involvement in the coup to be executed, but Banisadr used legal ruses to delay the executions, and when Iraq invaded, most were freed on the promise of a return to active duty. 144 participants were however executed, and in the following months 2,000–4,000 military personnel dismissed. An assassination attempt was made on Shapour Bakhtiar in Paris on 18 July, and on 22 July Ali Akbar Tabatabaei, the former Iranian press attache in the US, was assassinated in Bethesda, Maryland.