http://www.sanctioniranregime.eu/fact-sheets/executive-summary/
The entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp, also known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), should be sanctioned by the European Union due to its terrorist activity, its support for Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its suppression of the Iranian people. Multiple senior commanders of the IRGC have already been sanctioned by the UN Security Council and the EU for their involvement in Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. The EU has also already sanctioned the IRGC Air Force and the Khatem-ol Anbiya Construction Organization, an IRGC-owned group of companies assessed to support the Iranian ballistic missile and nuclear programmes.
Formed in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Revolutionary Guard is an elite military corps that operates independently of Iran’s regular armed forces and reports directly to the Supreme Leader. The IRGC is deeply involved in the country’s nuclear, missile and other weapons proliferation activities:
- The IRGC has operational control of the regime’s strategic arsenal of Shihab-3 missiles.
- The IRGC has responsibility for the protection of Iran’s nuclear program and likely oversees covert bomb development activity.
- The IRGC controls much of the nation’s defense industries.
The organization actively supports insurgents in Iraq, provides aid to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and funds, trains, and equips, Hamas, Hizballah and other Palestinian terrorist organizations.
- The IRGC supplied key funding to the terrorist group Hizballah to enable its killing of 58 French soldiers and 241 American service members in the 1983 bombing of French and U.S. military barracks in Lebanon. The IRGC was also responsible for providing assistance in the bombing of the 1983 U.S. Embassy in Beirut which killed 63.
- The IRCG was implicated in the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing 19 U.S. servicemen.
- The IRCG was implicated in 1994 bombing attack of the Amia Jewish Center in Argentina killing 85 people.
In addition the group brutally suppresses any internal threat to the stability of Iran’s theocratic regime as demonstrated by the recent and ongoing crackdown on election protestors.
The IRGC is deeply involved in the country’s nuclear, missile and other weapons proliferation activities: The IRGC has responsibility for the protection of Iran’s nuclear program and likely oversees covert bomb development activity. An undeclared uranium enrichment facility disclosed by the U.S., UK and France in September 2009 is reportedly located on an IRGC base near the city of Qom. The IRGC has operational control of the regime’s strategic arsenal of Shihab-3 missiles, with ranges capable of striking southeastern Europe.
The IRGC reportedly began its work in the nuclear field during the height of the Iran-Iraq war. According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which exposed Iran’s clandestine nuclear program in 2002, by 1987 the program had established several research and development centers at various universities throughout the country and had a budget of $800 million for nuclear research. [1]
In July 2008, the British paper The Telegraph reported that the IRGC had setup several front companies around Tehran to manufacture components for advance P-2 centrifuges, capable of enriching uranium at 2-3 times the rate of previous P1 models. According to the report, a previous attempt to develop the P-2 had been halted in 2004 after IAEA inspectors uncovered the activity.[2] Senior IRGC officials are believed to have been part of Iran’s contacts with Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.
In February 1998, the British government identified the IRGC as having procured goods and/or technology for weapons of mass destruction programs, in “addition to doing non-proliferation related business;”[3]
In 2008 the U.S. Government designated the IRGC an entity of proliferation concern for its involvement in Iran’s missile program, According to the U.S Treasury Department:
“The IRGC has been outspoken about its willingness to proliferate ballistic missiles capable of carrying WMD. The IRGC’s ballistic missile inventory includes missiles, which could be modified to deliver WMD. The IRGC is one of the primary regime organizations tied to developing and testing the Shahab-3. The IRGC attempted, as recently as 2006, to procure sophisticated and costly equipment that could be used to support Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs.” [4]
In August 2008 the EU sanctioned the IRGC Air Force saying the group “operates Iran’s inventory of short and medium range ballistic missiles.”[5]
Several of the IRGC’s leaders have also been sanctioned under UN Security Council Resolution 1747. These designations were later incorporated by the EU into its sanctions regime. Sanctioned individuals include:
1. Brigadier General Morteza Rezaie (Deputy Commander of IRGC)
2. Vice Admiral Ali Akbar Ahmadian (Chief of IRGC Joint Staff.)
3. Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi (Commander of IRGC Ground Forces)
4. Rear Admiral Morteza Safari (Commander of IRGC Navy)
5. Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi (Commander of Bassij resistance force)
6. Brigadier General Qasem Soleimani (Commander of Quds force)
7. General Zolqadr (IRGC officer, Deputy Interior Minister for Security Affairs)[6]
Footnotes:
[1] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,310979,00.html
[2] The Daily Telegraph, July 7, 2008
[3] http://www.iranwatch.org/suspect/records/iran-revolutionary-guard-corps-(irgc).html
[4] http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp644.htm
[5] Council Common Position 2008/652/CFSP of 7 August 2008 amending Common Position 2007/140/CFSP concerning restrictive measures against Iran
[6] http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaIran/unsc_res1747-2007.pdf