TEHRAN, Iran: To mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Grand Ayatollah Sayed Ruhollah Al-Khomeini Al-Moosawi, Iranian and Kashmiri officials are preparing for media and other memorial events.

Khomeini, who arrived in Tehran from exile in Paris in 1979 to father the Islamic Revolution, died on June 3, 1989, at the age of 89 following complications from internal bleeding.

Officials in Iran and Kashmir, his ancestral home, are holding essay competitions on the importance of spreading Islamic awareness and film presentations documenting his life, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reports.

James Thring, a noted American critic with the Ministry of Peace, a London non-governmental organization, said in an IRNA interview the late Ayatollah deserves praise for his forward thinking on Middle East relations.

"He foresaw the destruction of not only Palestine, but the Arab states generally, well before the devastation of Iraq," he said.

Time Magazine named Khomeini its Person of the Year in 1979.