NCRI – On Friday 26, January, Mohammad Mohaddessin, Chair of Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI, held a press conference in Paris to reveal new dimensions of the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq and the extent of its network in that country. Here is the text of his speech:
I would like to share with you some untold aspects of the clerical regime’s meddling in Iraq. The documents I am going to present shed light on the scope of the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraqi affairs.
This document is the list of 32,000 agents of the mullahs’ regime in Iraq who receive monthly salaries from the Iranian regime. These people are currently in effect paid staff of the Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force. (IRGC-QF)
A top-secret document of the IRGC, it was obtained by the sources of the resistance inside Iran.
A few points on the list:
This list only contains details of 31,690 Iraqis who are primarily affiliated with the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, also known as SCIRI. But it is not limited to them and includes other individuals and mercenary groups in Iraq.
It contains the Iraqi name and the Iranian name for each individual..
All of these individuals are considered as official members of the IRGC.
The list contains the personnel code, the account number and the amount of monthly salary of each individual in the Iranian currency, Rial.
The list also contains the details of each individual who is hired by the Qods Force according to his personnel file, including the date of recruitment by the IRGC-QF and the Badr Brigade, the unit they served while they were in Iran, their military rank and code of personnel while working for the Qods Force.
I want to reiterate that this list only contains the details of individuals who were hired directly by the Qods Force in Iran and does not include individuals who have been recruited in Iraq in the course of the past four years. So in reality, the actual number of the Iranian regime’s agents in Iraq is much higher than the one on this list.
All these agents continue to be paid even after leaving Iran for Iraq and they continue to receive their salaries as we speak.
The Iranian regime has stationed its agents in all the major provinces of Iraq.
This force was dispatched to Iraq in an organized way and in large groups shortly after the fall of the former Iraqi government in early 2003. They came through major border crossings under the direct command and supervision of the Qods Force, including IRGC Generals Qassem Suleimani, Iraj Masjedi, Ahmad Forouzandeh, and Hamid Taqavi.
The agents of the Iranian regime exposed in this document have an extensive presence and influence in Iraqi government agencies, in particular in the security apparatus some of which they control. They are the very same individuals who abducted two members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, Hossein Pouyan and Mohammad Ali Zahedi in Baghdad in August 2005. They were taken to the Ministry of Interior and subsequently transferred to an unknown location. There has been no news about their whereabouts for the past 18 months.
These same agents blew up the bus carrying Iraqi workers to Camp Ashraf, resulting in the death of 11 innocent Iraqi workers and the wounding of dozens more. These agents also blew up the water pipe-lines of Camp Ashraf several times in the recent past.
Some of these people are among senior political figures of Iraq. They receive monthly salary from the clerical regime, while they are considered as senior officials of the Iraqi government.
There are 481 representatives of Khamenei in the Badr Corps. Some of them hold key positions in the Iraqi government and Parliament. In all of its units, departments and general command, representatives of Khamenei ensure that his orders and directives are carried out. They report directly to Khamenei’s Office.
A part of the list contains details on individuals have been transferred from the Badr Corps to other sections. While, officially they are listed as being purged or laid off, some of them have actually been hired by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) or assigned by the Qods Force to extra-territorial missions. Their names appear on the list.
The 9th Badr Corps still maintains several centers inside Iran and coordinates the arrival and departure of these individuals to and from Iran. The Badr Corps’ main headquarters is in Tehran.
How are these agents paid?
While stationed in Iran, the budget and salary of the Badr Corps and other Iraqi groups were paid by the General Command of the Armed Forces through Bank Sepah and Ansar-al Mojahedin Bank. Since the transfer of the Badr Forces to Iraq, its budget is being paid by the Qods Force. This budget is under the title of “Budget and salary of extra-territorial forces.”
Members of the Qods Force take the money to border zone in Mehran (in the central sector of the border), where the money is handed over to the Badr agents. Badr agents subsequently take the money to Iraq and transfer it to office of SCIRI in Jaderyieh district of Baghdad.
The individual in charge of finances of SCIRI is named Abu Kawthar.
The representatives of Badr in various provinces go to Baghdad to receive the money.
The office of the personnel of Badr has set up a system in each Iraqi city to distribute the salary of the personnel by designated representatives.
The financial section of the Badr cooperates closely with the accounting and financial bureau of the Qods Force, which is headed by IRGC Brig. Gen. Allahyari. The name of the liaison officer between the Qods Force and Badr Corps is Naghdi.
Transferee of weapons and ammunition to Iraq
I would like to outline the manner in which weapons and ammunition are sent to these mercenaries in Iraq by the Iranian regime.
The center affiliated to the Qods Force in Najaf:
IRGC Brigadier General Mojtaba Abtahi, based in Fajr garrison in Ahwaz in southern Iran, one of the main bases of the Qods Force in southern Iraq, notifies his contact in Najaf by the name of Hamid Hosseini.
Hamid Hosseini is director of the center affiliated with the Qods Force in Najaf.
On behalf of the Fajr garrison, one team goes to Shalamcheh border region, where in coordination with Iraqi customs agents who belong to the Badr Corps, they obtain the permit to cross the border and drive to the Fajr garrison, where weapons and money is hidden in the car. The car is escorted by Iranian regime’s security forces back to the Shalamcheh border and returns to Iraq. To ensure secrecy, Hamid Hosseini uses different vehicles for each mission. Pick-up trucks are the main type of vehicles used for this operation.
An individual by the name of Ahmad Sami Abdol-Majid Alhalali, also known as Abu Majed Al-Basri, with an Iranian name of Ahmad Helali, is currently in charge of Iraqis stationed in Shalamcheh border. He is a veteran member of the IRGC in Iran and of the Qods Force. His personnel code in the Qods payroll list is 1202 and his monthly salary is 2,407,261 Rials.
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are the primary types of weapons transferred at this border crossing.
In coordination with Fajr garrison, other weapons and ammunitions are transferred to Iraq through Bostan, Howizeh and Hour-al Azim border crossing in Missan province.
For instance, an operations chief in Baghdad, in contact with commander of a terror network of Badr in Baghdad, said that in November 2006 IEDs entered Iraq from the Basra border crossing. Once he received a number of these devises, be blew them up on December 11, 2006 in Showleh street in front of Javadieh and Rahmanieh as a column of coalition forces was passing by, resulting in the death of coalition forces.
A significant number of IEDs that are manufactured by the clerical regime are sent to Iraq by the Fajr garrison.
IEDs are manufactured in ammunition production section of the Defense Industries located in Lavizan in northern Tehran in three separate industrial sections called Sattari industries, Sayyad Shirazi industries, and Shiroodi industries. Each of these industries has it own specific production.
The orders for manufacturing highly explosive IEDs are given by the Bureau of Operations of the Qods Force to Sattari industries. Engineer Rahimi, deputy director of Sattari industries, is in charge of coordinating these projects.
Head Quarters for Reconstruction of Iraq’s Holy Sites:
A major front organization used by Qods force for the delivery of arms and ammunition to Iraq is the Headquarters for Reconstruction of Iraq’s Holy Sites. This agency was founded following the overthrow of the former Iraqi government as part of a campaign to provide proper cover for Iranian meddling in Iraq and also as part of the scheme to increase Iran’s leverage in Iraq. This provided an easy and legal cover for extensive activities and coming and going of commanders and agents of the Qods Force.
The Reconstruction HQ has reached agreements with local authorities who are affiliated with the Iranian regime in different Iraqi provinces so that containers of goods arriving from Iran are not inspected at the border and are delivered sealed to Najaf, Karbala and Baghdad. The Qods Force hides arms and ammunitions in these containers. By using this scheme, the Qods Force has been able to transfer weapons freely and easily and provide them to its affiliates in Iraq.
The Headquarters is under the command of a senior Qods Force commander Brig. Gen. Mansour Haqiqat-Pour, with a lot of experience in directing Hezbollah terror networks in Turkey.
In coordination with Gen. Haqiqat-Pour, large caches of weaponry have been transferred in trucks to Iraq under the cover of Headquarters for the Reconstruction of Iraq’s Holy Sites.
This command H.Q. in Iraq is currently headed by a Qods Force commander named Khosravi, who is in liaison with the Iraqi government. The HQ for the Reconstruction of Iraq’s Holy Sites is in Karbala and has 30 to 50 personnel in border crossing between Mehran and Shalamcheh. These personnel ensure an easy flow of caravans carrying containers of arms from Iran into Iraq.
In order to adequately cover all areas of the operation, branch offices of this HQ have so far been set up in Basra, Al-Amara, Nassiriya, Divaniya, Najaf, Karbala, Al-Kut and Baghdad.
Conclusion:
What I have said sheds light on only a small portion of the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq.
The clerical regime, faced with intensifying domestic crisis and isolation inside Iran, views its only chance for survival in the establishment of a proxy regime in Iraq and the export of Islamic fundamentalism. By resorting to all sorts of means it is trying to achieve its objective in Iraq.
As scores of prominent Iraqis have underscored, Iraq is facing two occupations, with the Iranian regime being the main occupier.
Two forces are currently arrayed against one another in Iraq: democratic and patriotic forces vs. fundamentalist and extremist forces, organized and led by the Iranian regime, which provides them with extensive financial, military and political support.
5.2 million Iraqis signed a declaration last June in which they said that the only way to establish democracy in Iraq is to cut off the hands of the mullahs’ regime and its agents in Iraq. They expressed their support for the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in Iraq and the need for their stay in Iraq as a major barrier to the expansion of fundamentalism and terrorism emanating from the clerical regime ruling Iran.
