By: Reza Shafa
“Learn from ten years of hostage taking and leave the Islamic Republic [of Iran] alone,” headlined Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) weekly Sobh-e Sadegh.
Shocked by the UN Security Council Resolution 1747 and capture by U.S. forces of five of its Quds Force members in Irbil, the top military commanders in IRGC headquarters in Tehran sat down to draw new strategy to cope with the crisis in hand, according to the Resistance sources in Iran.
No surprise, they came up with the strategy of “creating fear to win victory.” With their backs against the wall, they find the only way out in what the IRGC is good at: more terrorist tactics.
One of the main components of the old strategy upgraded to fit the modern times upheavals would be to remind the public of its unique capabilities in creating fear through terrorist tactics. Sob-e Sadegh publication and a dozen more websites such as Basirat and Raja news belonging to IRGC got busy working. They began by claiming credit for previous terrorist attacks which Mohammad Khatamei, former regime president for eight years, was so diligently trying to keep distance from them.
On February 3, 2006, Raja news website which is run by close relatives of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote, “Do not bother the IRGC; if you do, prepare to face the consequences.” “Do not provoke the IRGC; because if you do, it can turn into the deadliest force ever put into the services of the Islamic Republic, “the website added.
“An attack on the bases of the U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf could send the oil prices skyrocketing; 300 to 400 dollars per barrel.”
Raja news warned the US and the west of Imad Mughniyeh’s threat of striking back. It wrote, “Imad Mughniyeh [the notorious Lebanese terrorist] played an important role in the 1983 suicide bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut. The 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina; the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires [is all part of his chilling record]. He is a stanched loyalist of the Islamic Republic of Iran and has worked closely with the IRGC and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in the past.”
Make no mistakes, the IRGC, as it has proven in the past means serious business. It is left to the rest of the world to take it serious.
Reza Shafa is an expert on the Iranian regime’s intelligence networks, both in Iran and abroad. He has done extensive research on VAVAK (MOIS), IRGC’s Intelligence Office, and Quds Force among others. Currently he is a contributor to NCRI website.
