The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was primarily established to suppress democratic forces in Iran. IRGC involvement in some of the Iranian regime’s repressive organs is summarized below.
IRGC in the Ministry of Intelligence
Since its inception in 1984, the mullahs’ Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has had a central role in internal repression and directing and supporting external terrorist activities. The IRGC forms the backbone of the Ministry:
1. Ninety percent of MOIS personnel were recruited from the IRGC by Mohammad Mohammadi-Rayshahri, the first Intelligence Minister.
2. Key posts at the directorate level, along with MOIS provincial directors are mainly occupied by IRGC members. Appointments at the Ministry are made by these individuals.
IRGC in Police Force
1. Since the start of the Iranian revolution in 1979, the newly formed Revolutionary Committees replaced urban police force whose main task was the suppression of freedoms. Members of these committees were low level members of the IRGC.
2. During Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency (1989-1997), the urban police force and the Gendarmerie merged with the Revolutionary Committees to form the new State Security Forces (SSF) as proposed by the then Interior Minister Abdullah Nouri. In other words, the official suppressive force in Iran was formed from members of IRGC.
3. From the outset, the chief of the SSF has always been a brigadier general from the IRGC.
Bassij (paramilitary) Force
In 1990, in addition to the formation of Land, Sea, and Air Forces, Ali Khamenei, the regime’s Supreme Leader, created the Bassij and Qods forces. The Bassij was organized for the intention of domestic suppression, while the Qods Force took on the export of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism as its mandate.
The Bassij is one of the five forces overseen by the IRGC. Through the Bassij, the IRGC has spread the reign of repression to all ministries, governmental and non-governmental institutions, banks, private and public businesses, schools, universities, governorate offices, and even villages. In addition, Bassij Force bases have been established throughout Iran to clamp down on dissent and safeguard the mullahs’ flagging rule by brute force.
Given the Bassij Force’s crucial role as guardians of the mullahs’ rule, Khamenei has given the force special authorities. Most of Khamenei’s secret or official guidelines are carried out by this force, especially at the time of so-called elections. It was this force that pulled out Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the ballot boxes in the sham presidential elections of 2005. Some of the Bassij Force’s authorities include:
– Having the exclusive authority to enter any premises to conduct investigations without any other entity’s involvement or knowledge,
– Setting up check points across cities to control the public and the traffic flow,
– Arbitrary detention of individuals at check points,
– Interference in matters which are supposed to lie within the purview of the SSF and the MOIS authorities,
– Conducting security checks on all domestic and international flights
IRGC’s Role in Terrorism
Since its formation, the IRGC has been involved in hostage taking and terrorism both inside and outside the country. Many of its top commanders are those who were involved in the U.S. embassy hostage taking in Tehran back in 1980.
The regime’s terrorist activities were extended to Lebanon when "Mohammad Rassoul-Alah" brigade of the IRGC entered that country in 1982.
– On June 6, 1982, the IRGC’s Mohammad Rassoul-Alah brigade, commanded by Hossein Mosleh, entered Lebanon. The force, which operated under the supervision of the IRGC’s intelligence unit, was dispatch on Khomeini’s personal order to establish an Islamic republic in Lebanon.
– Upon the brigade’s arrival in Lebanon, several major bombings shook that country. Bombings of the U.S. embassy, the U.S. Marine Barracks, Headquarters of French forces, hostage takings, and murder of foreign nationals in Lebanon marked the beginning of its activities. Hossein Mosleh personally commanded the bombing of the U.S. Marine Barraks in Beirut in 1983.
– In June 1985, on the third anniversary of its entry into Lebanon, Mosleh defined the tasks that the IRGC performed during its three year stay in Lebanon in an interview with Payam Enqelab publication of the IRGC as follows:
– Cultural activities and export of the Islamic revolution to Lebanon
– Training "our Lebanese brothers" both ideologically and militarily. The trainings were conducted at several levels. Preliminary trainings were conducted at mosques, and the general and specialized training followed next. More than 40 percent of the training sessions were on ideology.
– Organizing "our Lebanese brothers" at the end of their training…
– Deployment of "our brothers."
The process outlined by Mosleh is indicative of a general pattern used to set up proxy forces in other countries. This process was used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Bosnia.
Mohsen Rafiq-Doust, commander of the IRGC at the time when French hostages were held in Lebanon, officially entered in negotiations with the French government for their release. At the bargaining table with the French Socialist government representative, Rafiq-Doust expressed his preference to instead negotiate with the representative of Jacques Chirac, the opposition leader in France at the time, as he (Chirac) offered a better deal.
The regime openly took pride for bombings of the U.S. Marine Barracks and the French embassy in Beirut. In an interview with the state-run daily Ressalat on July 20, 1991, Rafiq-Doust said, "The U.S. knows that both the TNT and the ideology that sent 400 U.S. Marines and officers to hell came from Iran. This is why the U.S. is at impasse in the Persian Gulf."
The IRGC’s intelligence unit drew up dozens of assassination plots against the leader of the Iranian Resistance in France from 1981 to 1986, all of which were foiled.
In the 1980s, the IRGC set up three command centers for its terrorist operations:
1- The Ramezan Garrison, in charge of operations in Iraq
2- The Ansar Garrison, in charge of terrorist operations in neighboring countries such as Turkey and Pakistan
3- The Balal Garrison, in charge of operations abroad.
Following a wave of terrorist attacks and bombings in Paris, one of the terrorists identified as Fuad Ali Saleh was caught carrying explosives, and another one, Lotfi Ben Khala, surrendered himself to French Police. During their detentions, these two terrorists disclosed that bombings in France were planned by Mohammad Reyshahri, the Iranian regime’s Intelligence Minister at the time and the then Minister of Revolutionary Guards Rafiq-Doust. Their plan was approved by Rafsanjani and Khamenei. The terrorist operations were carried out in a bid to coerce France into accepting the regime’s demands at the negotiating table.
In 1987, Colonel Heidari and Air Force Lieutenant Hassan Mansour were assassinated in Turkey by a terror squad commanded by Ahmadinejad, the current president of the regime.
By the end of the war with Iraq and after the death of Khomeini in 1989, a new era began for the IRGC’s terrorist operations. In 1990, Khamenei formed the Qods Force by some of the most skilled commanders of the IRGC using the experience of its intelligence unit in hostage taking and assassinations of the 1980s. The Revolutionary Guard Ahmad Vahidi was appointed as its commander who was until then the commander of the military intelligence of the IRGC. Speaking about the new force, Mohsen Rezai, commander of the IRGC at the time told the state-run daily Kayhan on October 21, 1991, "One day the flame of anger and hatred of Muslims would set alight the heart of Washington, and the U.S. is responsible for its consequences. One day Jews like Salman Rushdie will not find a place to live."
The terrorist operations after the death of Khomeini especially targeted leaders of the opposition. On the 40th day of Khomeini’s death, on July 13, 1989, the general secretary of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, Abdul Rahman Qassemlou, was assassinated by an IRGC terrorist squad when he was set to negotiate with the regime in Vienna. At the scene of the assassination, Mohammad Sahraroudi, commander of the Ramezan Garrison and current vice-chair of the Supreme National Security Council, the regime’s highest decision-making body, was wounded. Ahmadinejad was in charge of the logistics of the operation and transferred weapons to terrorists from the regime’s embassy.
The assassination of Professor Kazem Rajavi, the brother of the Iranian Resistance’s leader, Massoud Rajavi, in Geneva on April 24, 1990, was planned by the Revolutionary Guard Ahmad Vahidi, commander of Qods Force, together with Fallahian, the then Minister of Intelligence. It was carried out by the Ministry of Intelligence.
On March 13, 1990, in a joint plan of the Intelligence Ministry and the Qods Force, Mohammad Mohaddessin, Chair of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, was targeted in Istanbul. The attack was carried out by Unit 5,000 of the Qods Force using Turkish nationals trained by Tehran. Hossein Abedini, member of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee was badly wounded in this operation. Mohaddessin was not harmed.
On June 4, 1992, in a joint operation of the Intelligence Ministry and the Unit 5,000 of Qods Force, Turkish agents were used to kidnap Akbar Qorbani, member of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee in Istanbul. His mutilated body was recovered after a few months in a nearby forest.
The NCRI’s representative in Italy, Mohammad Naqdi, was assassinated during a joint operation of the Qods Force and Ministry of Intelligence in Rome on March 15, 1993.
In 1994, a 320mm super gun was discovered at the Belgian port of Antwerp. The gun was built by the IRGC’s military industry headed by Mohammad Mostafa Najar, the current Defense Minister. The gun was destined to France to be used against the headquarters of the NCRI in Auvers-sur-Oise according to reports by the authorities. A similar gun was discovered in Baghdad before it was used in an operation against the leader of the Iranian Resistance.
A huge explosion in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, on June 25, 1996, destroyed a major part of the twin towers housing U.S. servicemen. In this incident 19 Americans and one Saudi were killed and 147 other Saudis, 118 Bangladeshis and 109 Americans were wounded. The operation was carried out by Unit 6,000 of the Qods Force commanded by the Revolutionary Guard Brigadier General Ahmad Sharifi. Addressing a meeting by commanders of the Revolutionary Guards Corps on July 31, 1996, Khamenei underlined the importance of the operation and praised those who carried out the attack and warned, "Any country supporting terrorism, in particular the U.S., which still supports Zionist regime occupying Palestine, will be harmed."
Since second half of 1990s, the Qods Force has focused its activities on Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and Lebanon in particular and other countries in the Middle East and Gulf region in general. The aim is to create proxy groups in these countries to spread fundamentalism and in the meantime gain power to control the country.