Controversies surrounding Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution
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Since the establishment of
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...
(Sepah Pasdaran) the organization has been involved in economic and military activities, some of them controversial.


Human rights abuses

The IRGC has been known to regularly practice torture and various other human rights abuses in order to suppress internal dissent. In 1993,
Ayatollah Khamenei Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei ( fa, سید علی حسینی خامنه‌ای, ; born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia ''marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third president o ...
appointed Naghdi as deputy director of intelligence of the
Quds Force The Quds Force ( fa, نیروی قدس, niru-ye qods, Jerusalem Force) is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War ...
, a branch of the IRGC responsible for international operations. Naghdi and his team allegedly committed numerous acts of torture and abuse.


Corruption

In 2005, the IRGC was discovered to be running an illegal airport near
Karaj Karaj ( fa, کرج, ) is the capital of Alborz Province, Iran, and effectively a satellite city of Tehran. Although the county hosts a population around 1.97 million, as recorded in the 2016 census, most of the county is rugged mountain. The urb ...
, close to
Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
, where they imported and exported goods with no oversight. In 2004, the Pasdaran stormed the newly-built
Imam Khomeini International Airport Imam Khomeini International Airport is the primary international airport of Tehran, the capital city of Iran, located southwest of Tehran, near the localities of Robat Karim and Eslamshahr and spread over an area of of land. Along with Mehr ...
just after it had been officially opened and shut it down, ostensively for security reasons. According to their critics, however, it was shut because the company hired to operate the airport was a "Turkish competitor of a Pasdaran owned business". One
Majlis ( ar, المجلس, pl. ') is an Arabic term meaning "sitting room", used to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups of administrative, social or religious nature in countries with linguistic or cultural conne ...
member stated that IRGC black-market activities might account for $12 billion per year. Yet at the same time, IRGC and Basij forces have been commended for their positive role in fighting illegal smuggling—a further illustration of the institution’s multidimensional and frequently contradictory nature.


Involvement with Hezbollah

The IRGC's logo was inspiration for the logo of
Hezbollah Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
. The IRGC provided military training to Hezbollah fighters in the
Bekaa Valley The Beqaa Valley ( ar, links=no, وادي البقاع, ', Lebanese ), also transliterated as Bekaa, Biqâ, and Becaa and known in classical antiquity as Coele-Syria, is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon. It is Lebanon's most important ...
during the early eighties. According to
Jane's Information Group Jane's Information Group, now styled Janes, is a global open-source intelligence company specialising in military, national security, aerospace and transport topics, whose name derives from British author Fred T. Jane. History Jane's Informatio ...
:
Any Hezbollah member receiving military training is likely to do so at the hands of IRGC he Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps either in southern Lebanon or in camps in Iran. The increasingly sophisticated methods used by IRGC members indicates that they are trained using Israeli and US military manuals; the emphasis of this training is on the tactics of attrition, mobility, intelligence gathering and night-time manoeuvres.


Involvement with Hamas

According to the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'',
Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...
fighters are possibly being trained in urban assault tactics by the IRGC.


Alleged involvement in the Iraq War

The
United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...
has repeatedly asserted IRG involvement in the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
against Iranian denials, though the U.S. has stopped short of saying the central government of Iran is responsible for the actions. In May 2008, Iraq said it had no evidence that Iran was supporting militants on Iraqi soil. According to a database compiled by the Multi-National Task Force's Iraq Task Force Troy, Iranian-made weapons accounted for only a negligible percentage of weapon caches found in Iraq. The U.S. charges come as Iran and
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
have complained that U.S.-supplied guns are flowing from Iraq to anti-government militants on their soil. The Department has reported that it has intelligence reports of heavy Islamic Revolutionary Guard involvement in
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
in which the force is supplying Iraqi insurgents. It is further claimed that US soldiers have been killed by Iranian-made or designed
explosive devices An explosive device is a device that relies on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide a violent release of energy. Applications of explosive devices include: *Building implosion ( demolition) * Excavation * Explosive formi ...
. This claim is disputed by Iran, saying that the bulk of American military deaths in Iraq are due to a Sunni insurgency and not a Shiite one. Two different studies have maintained that approximately half of all foreign insurgents entering Iraq come from
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
. Iran further disputes that former Iraqi army personnel, whom, prior to the 2003 invasion, the US and UK claimed were capable of deploying advanced missile systems capable of launching
WMDs A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natura ...
within 45 minutes, would be incapable of designing and producing improvised explosive devices. The U.S. charges of Iranian support come as Iran and
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
have complained that U.S.-supplied guns are flowing from Iraq to anti-government militants on their soil. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the
US Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washingto ...
, said in a report that the
Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...
cannot account for 190,000
AK-47 The AK-47, officially known as the ''Avtomat Kalashnikova'' (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is a gas operated, gas-operated assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian s ...
rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces. Security analysts with the
Center for Defense Information The Center for Defense Information (CDI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C. It specialized in analyzing and advising on military matters. History The Center for Defense Information was founded in 1971 by an indepen ...
, along with one senior Pentagon official, suggested that some of the weapons have probably made their way in to the hands of Iraqi insurgents. Italian arms investigators also recently stopped Iraqi government officials from illegally shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into Iraq. In November 2008, the U.S. State Department prepared to slap a multimillion-dollar fine on Blackwater (renamed to
Academi Blackwater was an American private military company founded on December 26, 1996 by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009 and known as Academi since 2011 after it was acquired by a group of private investors. ...
since 2011) for shipping hundreds of automatic weapons to Iraq without the necessary permits. Some of the weapons were believed to have ended up on the country's black market. In January 2007 the US army detained five Iranians in northern Iraq, claiming they were Quds operatives of the
IRGC The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...
, providing military assistance to Shiite militias, without offering any further evidence that lends credibility to such claims. The Iranian and Iraqi governments maintain that they were diplomats working for the Iranian consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan. The "IRGC cadres" were released as a negotiated deal for British sailors under the auspices of General Suleimani. In December 2009 evidence uncovered during an investigation by ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and Guardian Films linked the Quds force to the kidnappings of 5 Britons from a government ministry building in Baghdad in 2007. Three of the hostages, Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst and Alec Maclachlan, were killed. Alan Mcmenemy's body was never found but Peter Moore was released on 30 December 2009. The investigation uncovered evidence that Moore, 37, a computer expert from
Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln ...
was targeted because he was installing a system for the Iraqi government that would show how a vast amount of international aid was diverted to Iran's militia groups in Iraq. One of the alleged groups funded by the
Quds Force The Quds Force ( fa, نیروی قدس, niru-ye qods, Jerusalem Force) is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War ...
directly is the Righteous League, which emerged in 2006 and has stayed largely in the shadows as a proxy of the al-Quds force. Shia cleric and leading figure of the Righteous League,
Qais Khazali Qais Hadi Sayed Hasan al-Khazali ( ar, قيس هادي سيد حسن الخزعلي; born 20 June 1974) is best known as the founder and leader of the Iran-backed Special Groups in Iraq from June 2006 until his capture by British forces in Marc ...
, was handed over by the US military for release by the Iraqi government on December 29, 2009 as part of the deal that led to the release of Moore.


Labeling by the United States as a "terrorist organization"

On October 25, 2007, the United States labeled the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...
and the
Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics The Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL; fa, وزارت دفاع و پشتیبانی نیروهای مسلح, vezarat-e defa' va poshtibani-ey niruha-ye mosallah) is the defence ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran and pa ...
(MODAFL) as "
terrorist organizations A number of national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and fo ...
" with the Kyl–Lieberman Amendment. The Iranian Parliament responded by approving a nonbinding resolution labeling the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
and the
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
"
terrorist organizations A number of national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and fo ...
". The resolution cited U.S. involvement in dropping nuclear bombs in Japan in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, using
depleted uranium Depleted uranium (DU; also referred to in the past as Q-metal, depletalloy or D-38) is uranium with a lower content of the fissile isotope than natural uranium.: "Depleted uranium possesses only 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium, hav ...
munitions in the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
, bombing and killing Iraqi civilians, and
torturing Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
terror suspects in prisons, among others. When
Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
, the official external
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
and
television broadcasting A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid-1 ...
service of the
United States federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 ...
, asked if the IRGC is supplying weapons to the
Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
, the current
president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
of
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ( fa, محمود احمدی‌نژاد, Mahmūd Ahmadīnežād ), born Mahmoud Sabbaghian ( fa, محمود صباغیان, Mahmoud Sabbāghyān, 28 October 1956),
, laughed and said the US did not want Iran to be friends with Afghanistan. "What is the reason they are saying such things?" asked Ahmadinejad.


Financial sanctions

UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and ...
in several sanctions resolutions have voted in favour of freezing the assets of top Revolutionary Guard commanders.


References


Further reading

* {{cite book, author=Wise, Harold Lee, title=Inside the Danger Zone: The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf 1987-88, url=http://www.insidethedangerzone.com , location=Annapolis , publisher=Naval Institute Press, year=2007, isbn=978-1-59114-970-5 (discusses U.S. military clashes with Iranian Revolutionary Guard during the Iran–Iraq War) Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...