NCRI – The Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was responsible for setting up the Iraqi militia known as the 9th Badr Corps (Badr Brigade), an Iranian state-run website reported on Wednesday.
The official website, which is affiliated with the former commander of the IRGC, Mohsen Rezai, wrote: “After the [1979 Iranian] revolution, Esmail Daghayeghi founded the 9th Badr Division with the help of his old friend, Mohsen Rezai. It later became known as the Badr Corps. Today, it champions a united Iraq’s interests as well as the interests of its Shiite community.”
Prior to this, an IRGC publication called ‘Sobhe Sadegh’ had also quoted Rezai in its issue No. 287, dated January 22, 2007, as saying, “Esmail Daghayeghi first established the Martyr Sadr Battalions, which preceded the Badr Brigade. He later proposed to change the name to the 9th Badr Brigade.”
The same IRGC-affiliated publication had also quoted former IRGC commander, Yahya Rahim Safavi, as saying: The Badr Brigade, which was later turned into a division and after that into the Badr Corps, was founded by the IRGC’s Esmail Daghayeghi, who was killed during the Iran-Iraq war.