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Supreme Leader advisor: US, Zionist regime do not dare to attack Iran

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07-24-2010

ISNA – Tehran
Service: Foreign Policy


TEHRAN (ISNA)-Advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Yahya Rahim Safavi said Saturday the US and Zionist regime do not dare to attack Iran.

The probability of the US or Zionist regime attack on Iran is not that much, he said adding, “they have the potential to invade Iran, but they do not dare to take a political decision on the issue.”

He reaffirmed that, “Iranian army and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are fully prepared and enemies are aware of that, they do not have the power to take a political decision on the issue, because they know they can start the war but are not able to finish it.”

He added, “both the US and Zionist regime face internal problems and they know that we make many troubles for them if they attack Iranian territory.”

Safavi went on to say that the probable war against Iran is waged from the sea or the air, adding that, “we need to be fully vigilant of these attacks, the enemy knows that it will regret if launches a land strike against Iran.”

“American officials have presented a measure to the Congress to omit land war strategy.”

Safavi continued, Islamic Republic of Iran acts powerfully in Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, “we are very serious to defend our interests.”

Meanwhile concerning a question on a military conflict between Iran and neighboring countries, he said, “the strategy of Islamic Republic of Iran is a defensive one and we resist against anyone who attacks the country.”

Also regarding the issue of breach of 1975 Algiers Accord concluded between Iran and Iraq, Safavi said, “the hanged Iraqi President Saddam Hossein in his latest letter to Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (who now heads Expediency Council), reiterated that he had admitted all aspects of the accord.

“No one can violate these treaties since they are recorded internationally,” Safavi noted.

End Item

http://www.isna.ir/ISNA/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1580403&Lang=E



Cyber Wars in Iran

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http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/105083/cyber-wars-in-iran-.html

Saturday, 24 July 2010

The internet is often seen as the domain of dissidents and free spirits. But the Iranian regime like many others has long recognised the importance of winning the virtual propaganda war, and the talk for the last couple of years has been of an “Iranian Cyber Army”, a band of dedicated regime loyalists who attack opposition websites and other virtual targets.

But untangling myth from reality in this murky world is difficult. Has the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, IRGC, really deployed one of the largest forces of hackers on the planet, or is it smoke and mirrors, designed to intimidate dissident web users?

The years 1999 to 2009 were a golden decade for freelance hackers in Iran, “an era of chaos”, as a network security expert in the country describes it. With no comprehensive internet legislation or other barriers, groups of young hackers operated at will, even attacking sensitive government websites belonging to the army, the prosecutor general and even the space agency.

A member of “Emperor”, one of these groups, says it was once commissioned by a local firm to destroy a government database, while in the 2005 presidential election, it was asked to hack into two candidates’ websites.

Another group, known as “Iran Hackers Sabotage”, consisted of two 21-year-old software engineering students and one 18-year-old mathematics student who rose to fame for defacing the Guantanamo prison website.

Hackers continue to be active – a few weeks ago, Iranian police announced they had identified four hackers responsible for the cyber-theft of five million dollars from banks in Iran.

But the best-known groups have since faded away, replaced in the public imagination by hackers of a different breed.

The term “Iranian Cyber Army” first emerged when a number of opposition websites abroad as well as Twitter and Baidu were hacked last year. Although the attack resulted in no more than a brief disruption of activity, the name and reputation were made – though what they refer to precisely remains unclear.

No government agency has acknowledged control of the cyber army, but it is commonly believed that the Revolutionary Guards are behind it.

According to an IT specialist at Imam Hussein University in Tehran, “Between 2005 and 2007, the IRGC’s political bureau and strategic research centre took the concept of brining confrontation with the United States and Israel into cyberspace and transformed it from an idea into a costly operational programme, designed to take on domestic websites run by the opposition and also to penetrate foreign websites.”

In May 2010, Ebrahim Jabbari, a provincial Revolutionary Guards commander, went as far as to claim that the IRGC had the world’s second-largest cyber army at its disposal.

A 2008 report on the US website defencetech.org suggested that the IRGC’s cyber warfare capacity placed it in the world’s top five. The report was a “threat assessment” from a US perspective, but when it was translated eight months later, the Iranian authorities took it as a compliment and turned it to their advantage for propaganda purposes.

The network security expert, who used to work for the IRGC himself, says many of the old freelancers have been coopted into the new “army”, in some cases in return for having past sins overlooked.

While its links to aggressive hacking are unconfirmed, the IRGC does have a publicly-acknowledged defensive arm.

Set up in 2007, its existence was first publicised the following year in a news item on the arrest of managers of online porn sites.

In the wake of last year’s election, it showed it had political aims as well, announcing the detention of members of two internet networks. One of them, Iranproxy, had distributed 86 million sets of free software allowing users to create “virtual private network” and use proxy sites to get round web blocking. Tother was run by civil rights activists who disseminated information about political arrests and detentions.

In addition to paid cyber warriors and web monitors, the Iran regime also has an ally in the shape of the private IT firm Ashiyane Security Group, which regularly makes the headlines with coordinated cyber-attacks.

During the Israel incursion into Gaza last year, Ashiyane took down 500 websites in the country, including those belonging to Mossad and the then defence minister Ehud Barak. Last December, it claimed to have hacked into 700 Israeli websites including the postal services.

At about the same time, Ashiyane also attacked the website of NASA, the US space agency, which it said had shown a lack of respect for the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It uploaded a picture of Khomeini to the NASA site, with the inscription, “Our war is an ideological war and knows no borders or geography. As long as there is blasphemy and apostasy, there will be battle, and where there is battle, so are we.”

When Sunni Arab hackers brought down the Ahl al-Bayt site a server that hosts most Shia religious websites in Iran, including those of leading ayatollahs, Ashiyane also responded in kind, attacking five servers and defacing 300 websites in the Arab world.

The talk on the web is that Ashiyane is closely linked to the IRGC, but no documentary evidence proving or disproving this has yet come to light. The group’s head, Behrouz Kamaliyan, has also indicated that it is not linked to the purported cyber army.

Kamaliyan, 28, started hacking at the age of 16. Like many of his peers, he hacked into government websites, but in his case it was to persuade them they needed his help to improve web security. He later went on to set Ashiyane up as a legitimate business, officially specialising in net security and unofficially, in undermining Iran’s enemies on the web.
Last year, his company designed and produced a firewall system called Apadana, intended to protect web-based information from hackers. He told the Fars news agency that the system will allay any concerns that confidential data could be lifted from Iranian security, intelligence and defence websites if they use firewall systems designed abroad.

Like President Ahmadinejad, Kamaliyan is deeply hostile to Israel. He has vowed to undermine that country’s e-government system, and believes that the Israeli state has no right to exist and should therefore be denied a virtual existence, in the shape of its country domain name.

Some analysts argue that the might of the Iranian regime’s cyber-allies is overstated.

While Ashiyane boasts of attacking hundreds of websites at a time, other experts say it does so without much effort, by penetrating a single server where the sites are hosted.

Analysts interviewed for this report said exaggerated reporting in the state-run media had succeeded in persuading Iranians that the IRGC was a power to be reckoned with in cyberspace. Yet the extraordinary feats claimed by these cyber-warriors were technically simple and could have been done by a teenager with no specialist training.

A journalist whose own blog fell victim to state filtering, believes there is an element of PR in all the official talk about cyber-warfare, adding that he thinks the main aim is to cow dissidents who use the web to express their views.

As for the regime’s ability to protect its own sites from attack, the network security expert said, “The truth is that the majority of servers and government websites in Iran are as full of holes as Swiss cheese, and until these holes are filled, it is better not to annoy the mice.”
Saturday, 24 July 2010

Sanctions benefit IRGC, Karroubi says

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http://www.upi.com/

Published: July 12, 2010 at 12:08 PM

TEHRAN, July 12 (UPI) — The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is profiting from U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi said.

The U.N. Security Council voted June 9 to place new sanctions on Iran that allows for searches of cargo to or from Iran and increases the number of individuals and companies subject to travel bans and an asset freeze.

U.S. President Barack Obama in early July signed unilateral sanctions on Iran that focus on the Iranian energy sector. The U.S. sanctions follow similar actions by the Australian and Canadian governments.

Karroubi said sanctions on Iran would backfire, bringing in profits for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reports Radio Zamaneh, a Persian news service in the Netherlands.

Karroubi, a candidate in the volatile presidential election in Iran in 2009, said only the “weaker classes of society” would be hurt by economic sanctions.

Members of the IRGC were listed specifically in the sanctions passed by the Security Council.

After Telecommunications, the Revolutionary Guard Corps Also Seized Kurdistan Tractor Manufacturing Company

 

After a great struggle, in the end the Mehr Finance and Credit Institution, associated with the Revolutionary Guards, has successfully assumed ownership of the Kurdistan Tractor Manufacturing Company despite fierce resistance from the Company’s managers. It has notified the company’s current president that he may soon “submit his resignation,” and this is desired despite strong opposition from the aforementioned company’s president as well as authorities in the Kurdistan (provincial) government.

Since early 2010, the Revolutionary Guards planned to buy the Kurdistan Tractor Manufacturing Company, which is one of many companies in Iran’s tractor industry, but the company’s managers delayed the Revolutionary Guards’ efforts. However, in late June, the Mehr Finance and Credit Institution, which is associated with the Revolutionary Guards, proceeded to buy the company and put the company’s current president under heavy pressure to quickly resign or seek a huge loan from the Institution, but this request had also not been accepted. This insistence coming from the authorities of the Mehr Institution for the president of the Kurdistan Tractor Manufacturing Company to resign also had other dimensions, and it intensified to the point where, in his resistance to resign or seek a loan, the Company’s president said that he would not leave his responsibility unless he was dismissed.

One source from the Kurdistan provincial government meanwhile revealed that the conflict over the sale of the Kurdistan Tractor Manufacturing Company escalated such that the Governor, in order to thwart the Revolutionary Guard’s efforts, personally traveled to Tehran to inform the authorities in the government’s cabinet and relevant ministries, though his efforts had yielded no results by July. The current president of the Kurdistan Tractor Manufacturing Company was a local manager who, in trying to boost production, made great strides in improving the company’s factory, increasing profitability, and employing local workers—but the reality of pressure from the Revolutionary Guards led to the president’s replacement by a Revolutionary Guard general named Davood Amrahnejad who until now has not made any contribution and has left the company in a more problematic situation than it was in before. It is noteworthy to mention that the Kurdistan Tractor Production Company is the biggest and only manufacturing company in west Iran, comprised of 160 personnel and workers.

At the beginning of 2010, the Mehr Finance and Credit Institution assumed ownership of the Tabriz Tractor Manufacturing Company for a sum of 177 billion tomans, despite severe opposition from that Company’s managers and East Azerbaijan’s representatives in the Majlis.  Mehr had also urged the president of the Tabriz Company to resign and brought about many changes at the factory level of management. And now also one of the Revolutionary generals by the name of A. Hanafi has been appointed as president in a manner similar to the replacement of the Kurdistan Tractor Manufacturing Company’s president.

Detainee Amirhossein Kazemi in Poor Physical Condition

6 , July , 2010

Amirhossein Kazemi, a detained member of the Youth Chapter of Nehzad-e-Azadi-e-Iran (Freedom Movement of Iran) is in poor physical condition.

RAHANA: During a phone conversation with his family, Kazemi has stated that he is in poor physical condition and the authorities have failed to provide him with medical care despite his requests.According to Mizan Khabar, he has been sentenced to 3 years in prison following a trial that lasted 10 minutes. He is still held in prison despite the judge’s promise that he would be released.

He is held in Ward 209 of the Evin Prison and is therefore deprived of weekly visits with his family for security reasons.

Kazemi, a blogger and a political activist, was detained after being summoned to the Intelligence Ministry on March 6th and has been held in prison since then.

Former Student Activist Mehdi Khodaei Presented Last Defence

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http://www.rhairan.in/en/?p=5237

6 , July , 2010
Mehdi Khodaei, human rights activist and former secretary of the reformist Students Islamic Association of Azad University -Shahre Rey branch presented his last defence in branch 3 of Evin interrogation court presided by Mr. Kiamanesh.
RAHANA- Mehdi Khodaei has been detained in the IRGC-controlled security ward 2-A since March 2, 2010. Although his official charges have not been indicted yet, it is assumed that human rights activities are among those charges.According to RAHANA’s reporter, his interrogators and the judiciary officials persist on the continued detention  of this human rights activist although his interrogations were over a long time ago. During his detention, Khodaei has been under intense pressure to accept the accusations and make forced confessions.  He is currently confined in solitary inside Evin ward 2-A which is controlled by IRGC Intelligence Section and beyond the provision of Prisons Organization.On March 2 and 3, 2010, almost 20 human rights activists were arrested by IRGC intelligence agents and have been under various pressures during detention. Abdolreza Ahmadi, a member of Iran Human Rights House (IRHI, formerly RAHANA) was among those arrested on march 3 and is currently detained in the security ward 2-A.

Previously in Summer 2008, Mehdi Khodaei was arrested and detained in Evin ward 209 for 40 days. He had been also suspended from his studies for multiple semesters by Azad University – Shahre Rey branch because of his student activities.

Iran Revolutionary Guards Amass Power While Backing Ahmadinejad

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a6btiOq7DxNY

June 29 (Bloomberg) — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, whose forces helped President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suppress street protests over his disputed re-election, may be among the biggest winners as he moves to consolidate power.

A guards-controlled paramilitary force called the Basij, as well as police, violently quelled protests by supporters of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who said Ahmadinejad’s re-election was rigged. Seventeen demonstrators and eight Basij died in the protests, according to state-run media.

Guards officials, having backed Ahmadinejad, may now cement their economic power, said Alireza Nader, an analyst at the Rand Corp. in Arlington, Virginia. They already control more than 100 companies in the construction, real estate and energy industries, he said.

“They are the praetorian guards created to protect the revolution,” said Nader, who helped write a study of the guards for the U.S. defense secretary’s office that was published in January. “Now they want to protect their own economic interest.”

The 125,000-strong Guards Corps was created by Iran’s clerical rulers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Its influence has grown under Ahmadinejad, himself a guards veteran, said Michael Eisenstadt, a senior analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Eight of the 21 posts in the president’s cabinet are held by former members, according to Ali Alfoneh, an analyst at Washington’s American Enterprise Institute. Among them are Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, whose agency ran the election, and Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar.

Not Monolithic

Another five places are occupied by past Basij commanders. The state broadcasting arm is headed by Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former guard. At least one-third of Iran’s parliament members are former guards, according to Nader.

Under Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, 65, only three ministers had belonged to the guards or Basij.

The organization is not monolithic. Though senior commanders picked by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remain loyal, there are “real fissures” between them and former members who favor better ties with the West, said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Mohsen Rezai, who commanded the force from 1981 to 1997, was one of three candidates running against Ahmadinejad, 52. Rezai, 54, came in third with 1.73 percent and complained of irregularities in the count. He withdrew his objections on June 24, said IRNA, Iran’s official news agency.

‘Existential Vulnerability’

Ali Larijani, another former guards commander and now the parliament’s speaker, questioned the neutrality of the Guardian Council, Iran’s election-oversight body. Tehran Mayor Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, also an ex-commander, said on June 26 that the authorities should address the complaints of those protesting the vote and that this “cannot be resolved through force.”

“The Revolutionary Guards are the regime’s existential vulnerability; they are key to ensuring its stability,” said Kaveh-Cyrus Sanandaji, an Iran expert at the U.K.’s University of Oxford. “Divisions within it could prevent it from carrying out its mandate and could turn it against its master.”

In October 2007, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the guards for pursuing nuclear capabilities and seeking to develop ballistic missiles. The U.S. and its European allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon, a charge Ahmadinejad denies.

Construction and Engineering

U.S. companies were forbidden to have any financial dealings with nine petroleum, construction and engineering companies that Treasury said were controlled by the guards. They include the Khatam al-Anbia construction company, Sahel Engineering Consulting Co. and Sepasad Engineering Co. Treasury also barred dealings with Bank Melli Iran, Iran’s largest bank, Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat, as well as eight individuals, including General Hossein Salimi, head of the guards’ air force.

The force “is so deeply entrenched in Iran’s economy and commercial enterprises, it is increasingly likely that if you are doing business with Iran, you are doing business with” the guards, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in an Oct. 25, 2007, statement.

Following the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, the parliament enacted legislation permitting the corps to use “its engineering capability in rebuilding the country’s economy.” According to the Web site of Khatam al-Anbia, the company has been awarded more than 780 construction contracts.

Water and Bridges

Under Ahmadinejad, the government has favored the guards by offering its companies no-bid contracts, especially in oil and natural-gas extraction, pipeline construction and large-scale infrastructure development, according to Rand’s report.

Khatam al-Anbia was awarded a $1.3 billion contract in May 2006 to construct a 560-mile (900-kilometer) gas pipeline from Asalouyeh, in southern Iran, to Iranshahr near the Pakistani border. The Fars news agency reported the contract. In June 2006, the construction group won a $2.3 billion contract to develop part of the South Pars offshore natural gas field. It also got jobs potentially worth $2 billion to expand Tehran’s subway system, the IRNA news agency said.

Revolutionary Guards commander in chief Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari last December appointed Rostam Qasemi as the new head of Khatam, according to Fars news agency. Qasemi had previously headed the construction unit of the guards’ naval arm. Jafari chairs the company’s management meetings.

“The IRGC’s growing economic might has increased its sense of political privilege and entitlement,” the Rand report said.

— With assistance from Ali Sheikholeslami in London and Ladane Nasseri in Tehran. Editors: Anne Swardson, Anne Pollak.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kambiz Foroohar in New York at [email protected], Henry Meyer in Dubai at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at [email protected];

Student Activist Salman Sima in Prison Limbo in Evin Ward 350

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http://www.rhairan.in/en/?p=4876

28 , June , 2010
Salman Sima, an Azad University activist who was detained on June 12, 2010 for the second time since last year, is detained in Evin ward 350 in unclear situation.
RAHANA- Azad University Student activist Salman Sima was arrested on June 12, 2010 and was detained in Evin ward 2-a , an IRGC-controlled security guard. He then went on a hunger strike during which he went to comma and  had to be taken to Evin clinic for serum injection. Salman Sima was later transferred to the public ward 350 where he ended his hunger strike.According to Avar News, although Salman Sima’s temporary detention bill had been initially issued for 5 days and his interrogation sessions are over, his continued detention 17 days since his second arrest makes him remain in a complete unclear situation.RAHANA reminds that according to the Article 32 of IRI’s Constitution: “No one may be arrested except by the order and in accordance with the procedure laid down by law.  In case of arrest, charges with the reasons for accusation must, without delay, be communicated and explained to the accused in writing, and a provisional dossier must be forwarded to the competent judicial authorities within a maximum of twenty-four hours so that the preliminaries to the trial can be completed as swiftly as possible.  The violation of this article will be liable to punishment in accordance with the law.”


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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

http://www.cfr.org/publication/14324/irans_revolutionary_guards.html

Introduction

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was founded in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution to defend the regime against internal and external threats, but has since expanded far beyond its original mandate. Today the guard has evolved into a socio-military-political-economic force with influence reaching deep into Iran’s power structure. During the first term of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, current and former fighters carved out their place in government: they have been appointed ambassadors, mayors, undersecretaries, provincial governors, and fourteen of the country’s twenty-one cabinet ministers are veterans of the force. Analysts say the organization, with its control of strategic industries, commercial services, and black-market enterprises, has evolved into one of the country’s most influential domestic institutions.

Crackdowns on protestors in the wake of the disputed June 2009 presidential elections have brought new scrutiny of the guard’s role. Some analysts believe IRGC influence in the political arena amounts to the irreversible militarization of Iran’s government (NYT). Others, like Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, suggest the guard’s power has grown to exceed (New Republic) that of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who legally has final say on all state matters. But Frederic Wehrey, an adjunct senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and the co-author of a recent study on the IRGC, notes that the Revolutionary Guard is far from a cohesive unit of likeminded conservatives. Instead, he says, it’s a heavily factionalized institution with a mix of political aspirants unlikely to turn on their masters.

‘Guardians’ of the Revolution

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or Pasdaran in Persian, was formed by former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It was originally created as a “people’s army” similar to the U.S. National Guard; commanders report directly to the supreme leader, Iran’s top decision-maker. Iran’s president appoints military leaders of the guard but has little influence on day-to-day operations. Current forces consist of naval, air, and ground components, and total roughly 125,000 fighters. The corps’ primary role is internal security, but experts say the force can assist Iran’s regular army, which has about 350,000 soldiers, with external defenses. Border skirmishes during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s helped transform the guard into a conventional fighting force organized in a command authority similar to Western armies; some analysts compare it to the “old Bolshevik Red Army.” The guard also controls Iran’s Basij Resistance Force, an all-volunteer paramilitary wing which, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual assessment of the world’s militaries, consists of as many as one million conscripts.

The Revolutionary Guard controls the country’s strategic missile forces, mounts foreign and domestic intelligence operations, and is responsible for protecting the regime; the guard has sole jurisdiction of patrolling the Iranian capital.

Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former CIA analyst, says the Revolutionary Guard was created as a “counterweight to the regular military, and to protect the revolution against a possible coup.” Khomeini’s revolutionary government, which toppled the U.S.-backed regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was seeking to avoid a repeat of a successful 1953 coup that ousted another revolutionary government. But the guards’ activities in recent years have been aimed at protecting Iranian interests far beyond Tehran.

International Adventurism

Military analysts say the guard began deploying fighters (NPR) abroad during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1988, “export[ing] the ideals of the revolution throughout the Middle East.” The Quds Force, a paramilitary arm of the Revolutionary Guards with less than a thousand people, emerged as the de facto external-affairs branch during the expansion. Its mandate was to conduct foreign-policy missions–beginning with Iraq’s Kurdish region–and forge relationships with Shiite and Kurdish groups. A Quds unit was deployed to Lebanon in 1982, where it helped in the genesis of Hezbollah. Another unit was sent to Bosnia to back Bosnian Muslims in their civil war in the early- and mid-1990s. More recently, some experts say, the Quds Force has shipped weapons to the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Gaza-based Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and is also supplying munitions to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Shiite militias in Iraq.

The guard’s alleged involvement in Iraq has been a particular point of contention between Washington and Tehran. Former President Bush accused Iran in February 2007 of providing roadside bombs to “networks inside Iraq.”

Timeline: U.S.-Iran Relations

A month later coalition forces captured Ali Musa Daqduq, a Lebanese-born member of Hezbollah operating in Iraq, and Pentagon officials said Daqduq was working with the Quds Force to train Iraqi extremists in logistics, firearms, and explosives. Gen. David Petraeus, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told lawmakers in September 2007 that the Quds Force was aiding militias in Iraq to “serve its interests and fight a proxy war” with coalition forces, and in a September 2007 interview with military reporters, former Multi-National Force-Iraq spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner said six operatives with Quds Force links had been arrested in 2007. Despite repeated Iranian denials, U.S. congressional leaders in late 2007 designated the guard as a foreign terrorist organization, cutting off Iranian companies and individuals from the U.S. financial system.

Yet, not everyone is convinced Iran’s role in Iraq is as direct as U.S. officials suggest, or its pursuit of nuclear technology is as clear-cut, as this Backgrounder explains. Likewise, some experts see the Guard’s role in Afghanistan as exaggerated. While U.S. military officials have accused Iran of supplying the Afghan Taliban with weapons, CFR International Affairs Fellow George Gavrilis says there is a lack of evidence to support the charges. “Iran has a vested interest in a stable, well-governed Afghanistan,” Gavrilis writes, “an interest that it has protected since the fall of the Taliban.”

Becoming a Player at Home

The alleged spread of the Revolutionary Guards’ external influence coincides with a growing cachet at home. Mehdi Khalaji, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote in August 2007 that “the Revolutionary Guards are the spine of the current political structure [in Iran] and a major player in the Iranian economy.” The guard’s political influence began its ascendancy as a counterweight to the former reformist President Mohammad Khatami. But analysts say the number of former guardsmen entering political life spiked during Ahmadinejad’s first term, beginning in 2005. Khamenei has appointed former Revolutionary Guard commanders to top political posts (Ahmadinejad was a guardsman) and key institutions, like the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Corporation (Ezzatollah Zarghami), the Supreme National Security Council (Saeed Jalili), and the Expediency Council (Mohsen Rezaei, a 2009 presidential challenger). Ali Alfoneh, an expert on the Revolutionary Guard and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says this increase was a tactical move by Khamenei to counter pressures at home, and abroad. He “must have considered former members of the Revolutionary Guard better at crisis management at home … but also better [suited] to counter external pressure on the nuclear issue,” Alfoneh says.

The Revolutionary Guard also controls the country’s strategic missile forces, mounts foreign and domestic intelligence operations, and is responsible for protecting the regime; the guard has sole jurisdiction of patrolling the Iranian capital. Wehrey, writing with colleagues in a January 2009 assessment of the Pasdaran (PDF), notes that “much of the institution’s rise to prominence over competing militias and paramilitaries in the post-revolutionary period was due to its effectiveness in suppressing internal dissent.” Guardsmen and Basij volunteers have a history of violently crushing riots in Iranian cities, and a unit dedicated to quelling civil unrest, the Ashura Brigades, was established in 1993 (PDF). In 2007, the Basij was brought under direct command of the Revolutionary Guard by Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari. Alfoneh wrote in September 2008 the move officially refocused the organization to defend against the type of non-violent “velvet revolution” that end Communist rule in the former Czechoslovakia. Some analysts say the reorganization was aimed at quelling the very unrest that has surfaced following the June 2009 election. During protests following the contested June 2009 presidential election, members of the guard’s Basij force–dubbed “shadowy vigilantes” (NYT) by Western news organizations–allegedly beat and killed opposition supporters in Tehran and other Iranian cities.

A Money Machine

Political clout and military might are not only attributes of today’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. It is also a major financial player. The Los Angeles Times estimated in 2007 that the group, which was tasked with rebuilding the country after the war with Iraq, now has ties to over one hundred companies that control roughly $12 billion in construction and engineering capital. Former CFR Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh has linked the guards to university laboratories, weapons manufacturers–including Defense Industries Organization–and companies connected to nuclear technology. Khalaji, of the Washington Institute, lists the Bahman Group, which manufactures cars for Mazda, among guard-owned companies. And Wehrey writes that “the IRGC has extended its influence into virtually every sector of the Iranian market.” The engineering firm Khatam al-Anbia, for instance, has been awarded over 750 government contracts for infrastructure, oil, and gas projects, he says.

Some experts suggest the guard’s rising political and economic clout has put it in a position to challenge the clerical establishment.

Not all of the guard’s activities are seen as above board. Mohsen Sazegara, a founding member of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and now a U.S.-based Iranian dissident, says though the original charter of the elite force was to create a “people’s army,” years of political and military changes have transformed the unit into a shadowy behemoth. Sazegara says the guard’s business dealings range from construction and manufacturing to black-market enterprises, like the illegal importation of alcohol. “I don’t know of any other organization in any country like the Revolutionary Guards,” Sazegara says. “It’s something like the Communist Party, the KGB, a business complex, and the mafia.” But Wehrey says the public backlash against its expansion has been muted and that the IRGC enjoys a constituency in certain areas of Iran, especially in rural provinces where Guard-funded infrastructure projects and employment in the Basij paramilitary may give the Guard “a higher degree of support than we assume.”

Looking Ahead

Analysts differ widely on what the future holds for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Some, like Alfoneh, suggest the guard’s rising political and economic clout has put it in a position to challenge the clerical establishment. “For the past thirty years the Islamic Republic has been based on a fundamental alliance between the clergy and the Revolutionary Guard,” Alfoneh says, “where the clerics have been ruling the country, and the Revolutionary Guard has guarded the Islamic Republic” and its values. But now the dynamic has changed to “where there Revolutionary Guard is both ruling, and guarding,” Alfoneh says. Stanford’s Milani, writing in The New Republic, suggests that the post-June 2009 election crisis in Iran could strengthen the guard’s hand even more. If Khamenei calls on the Revolutionary Guard for a full crackdown on protestors, Milani says it would be “difficult to imagine the IRGC quelling the current protests and then simply turning power over to the clergy.” Milani adds: “It is even conceivable that faced with irresolution among the clergy, they will act on their own, and establish a military dictatorship that uses Islam as its ideological veneer–similar to Pakistan under Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.”

Wehrey doubts the guard and its commanders would go that far. For one, Wehrey notes, the organization today is overly factionalized and made up of competing currents. During the Khatami era, for instance, the guard’s leadership supported conservative elements within the Iranian establishment, while the rank-and-file were more empathetic to the reformists. Under Ahmadinejad, splits have emerged most noticeably on economic policy. And to suggest that the guard would orchestrate an overt bid for power misses the “checks and balances on the system,” Wehrey says. “There is so much else going on behind the scenes. It’s intensely driven by personalities, by political differences that overlap the formal structures. To say that the guards are acting in lockstep to assert themselves as a political actor ignores the factional divisions … that permeate the guard.”

Given the guard’s uncertain direction and cloudy ambition, it is unclear what tools the Obama administration might bring to bear to counter the organization’s rise. The U.S. State Department has included Iran on its list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1984, and the agency’s most recent country assessment designated the Revolutionary Guard (specifically its Quds force) a terrorist entity.

Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.

Revealing Hidden & Known IRGC Identities

 

IRGC Chart
Khamenei
Ali Khamenei (Commandere-in-Chief of IRGC)
Hassan_Firouzabadi
Hassan Firouzabadi
(Joint Chief of Staff)
Mohammad_Hejazi
Mohammad Hejazi
Deputy Commander of Joint Chief of Staff
( Former Deputy Commander of IRGC)
Mohammad_Ali_Jafari
Mohammad Ali Jafari
(Commander of IRGC)
Yahya_Rahim_Safavi
Yahya Rahim Safavi
(Khamenei’s Senior Advisor)
Mohammad_HejaziMohammad Hejazi
(Former Deputy Commander of IRGC)
Hossein_Salllami
Hossein Salami
(Deputy Commander of IRGC
(Former Commander of Airforce)
Morteza SafariMortaza Safari
(Commander of Navy)
Mohammad Pakpur
Mohammad Pakpur
(Commander of Army)
Hossein_Sakhtemanian
Hossein_Sakhtemanian
(Director of Film, Radio & TV of IRGC)
Ali_Saeedi Ali_Saeedi
Ali Saeedi Shahroodi
(Representative of Khameni in IRGC)
Hossein_Taeeb
Hossein Taeb
(Former Commander of Basij Paramilitary)
Mojtaba_Zonoor
Mojtaba Zonoor
(Deputy Representative of Khameni in IRGC)
Mohammad_Bagher_Zolghadr
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr
(Deputy Commander of Basij Paramilitary)
Yadollah_Javani
Yadollah Javani
(Deputy Political Affair)
Amir_Seyyed_Ahmad_Mighani
Amir Seyyed Ahmad Mighani
(Commander of Khatamol Anbia Airforce Base)
Esmail_Ahmadi_Moghaddam
Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam
(Police Chief)
Jafari_Khatami
Ahmad Khatami & Other Commanders
Khatami_Sepah
Ahmad Khatami (One of Tehran’s Friday Prayer Leader)
Larijani_Sepah
Larijani Speaker of the Parliament
Larijani_Sepah
Larijani Speaker of the Parliament
Akhunds_Sepah
Ahmad Khatami & Other Commanders
Jafari
Mohammad Ali Jafari (Commander of IRGC)
Mohammad Reza Naghdi Basij Torturer
Mohammad Reza Naghdi
(Commander of Basij Paramilitary)
Amirali_Hajizadeh
Amir Ali Hajizadeh
(Commander of Aerospace)
Mohammad Reza Naghdi Basij Torturer
Ahmad Reza Radan
(Deputy Police Chief)

Chief Inspector of Iran’s Prisons

شاید معرفی‌ یکی‌ از خون آشام‌ترین افراد که تا کنون مجوز کشتن صدها تن‌ از جوانان و تجاوز به آنهارا در زندانهای کلّ کشور صادر کرده فردی به جز مهریزی رئیس بازرسی کلّ زندانهای کشور نیست این سالهای سال به همراه صداقت ، عزیزی در زندان قصر به شکنجه زندانیان مشغول بود و به خاطر خوش خدمتی هر سه با گرفتن پست و مقام و همکاری با اطلاعات به سرعت پیشرفت کردند مهریزی یکی‌ از افرادی است که در جریان مستقیم قتل خانم زهرا کاظمی بوده است و پرونده پرسنل اصلی‌ درگیر در این جنایت را دستکاری کرده است

What you [will be] reading is what we’ve extracted from a comprehensive and detailed report. Its writer and online publisher is Iraj Mesdaghi whose web address we’ve included at the end of this article. The writer of this report was determined to clarify some ambiguities about the names of those involved but in our opinion, this causes some mix-up of information pertaining to the torturers and interrogators which needs to be made public—and it is for this reason we aimed to extract and publish this part of the data. Naturally, Mr. Mesdaghi’s report would have had some more credibility if pictures of the mentioned torturers had also been included.

1. Hossein Attar. Informatics manager and adviser of Parliamentary affairs, and Voice and Vision (state media) regions. A Ministry of Intelligence agent, active in terrorism outside the country, he is one of the escaped suspects connected to the terror case of Shahpour Bakhtiari.

His brother’s name is Alireza Shaikh-Attar who for while was editor-in-chief of Hamshahri newspaper and a member of the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Studies. Currently he is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ambassador to Germany.

2. Asghar Fazel. From 1360 he was one of the vicious interrogators at Evin Prison’s Section 7. One of his personal characteristics is that he always wore a white skull-cap. It is said that he afterwards became a member of the Shahid Beheshti University’s Science Association (Melli Sabeq), but we don’t know about the accuracy or inaccuracy of this. However, we know that he got promoted and held a position in the country’s Supreme Court.

3. The posting of Haj Karbalaei’s name on the Main Office of Tehran Province Prisons’ website on 27 Mordad 1386 happened because some of his former political prisoners identified him and wrote information pertaining to him. Haj Mehdi Karbalaei was Evin Prison’s interior adviser alongside people like the Hosseinzadeh brothers, Haj Jowharifard (who goes by the alias Mahdavi) and everyone belonged to the Lajevardi Group; they held supervising and training positions on different types of tortures and were active in the torturing and firing squad of prisoners.

In addition to various kinds of abuse, impudicity, and depravities, Haj Karbalaei many times proposed temporary marriage to the mothers and sisters of prisoners in exchange for the release of their loved ones.

A sister of one of the prisoners [who had been executed] by fire squad years later wrote, “When I took note of the tortures on the body of an executed brother, I complained to Haj Karbalaei, and he with such conceit and ridicule said, ‘Don’t worry about the marks of torture on his body, we fired shots on those very marks.”’

Karbalaei and a number of baazaris belonging to the Lajevardi Group such as Haj Shirini, Nasser Aghaei, Haj Morad and Abbas Teymouri were in charge of the Evin facility and in this way every week would pocket some money. Haj Karbalaei until 1384 was occupied with his job as Evin’s interior director in the subjugation of political prisoners. Political prisoners from Row 320 of the Evin Prison in their response to the claims made by the prosecutor’s adviser (26 Azar 1384) described how the Regime’s tighkeshan and Revolutionary Guards attacked and harassed political prisoners as well as confiscated their property; they mentioned Karbalaei’s name along with Habib Abbasi (in charge of Evin Prison’s intelligence security) and Yousefi (in charge of intelligence and custody at Evin Prison). Karbalaei then was presented as head of the Fardis Prison in Karaj. He exploited prisoners by building a factory in prison and giving them meager wages.

The Main Office of Tehran Province Prisons’ website presents him as someone “from the Revolutionary generation” and “the generation which was always in line with and contiguous with the Islamic movement”. He currently has “a heavy load of experience in managing prisons, and is in charge of the Fardis Penitentiary” (27 Mordad 1386).

4. Haj Mehdi Karbalaei in prison was only known as “Haj Mehdi”. Nobody knew his last name and in the prisoners’ report he is also referred to as “Haj Mehdi”. He in 1360 (1981) was twenty years old; he had a white complexion, was bright-colored hair and thin. Sly and reserved, he slowly and carefully weighed his words. He would mostly take part in floggings and other abuses, but would draw the real line of conflict with the prisoners and would file (false) cases against them at the Interrogations Division. He became a guard associated with one of the people in charge of Evin’s “Lab” and he had an active role in the 1988 killings. Whether in the Lajevardis’ heyday, or in the period of reform in the prisons, or afterwards, Karbalaei belonged to the (exclusive) group of prison warden and would guard his place.

5. Jalil Bandeh (Uncle Jalil). A torturer, Lajevardi guard, and tirkhalas zan (sniper?) at Evin Prison was killed on the frontlines of the Iran-Iraq war in 1361 (1982).

6. Mujtaba Halvaei Asgar. One of the most vicious and crooked guards at Evin Prison who afterwards became consultant on the prison’s security and patrol. He played a very active role in the 1367 (1988) killings. He in 1989 left Evin Prison and later we heard that he was one of the executives of Tea World Co. Mujtaba Halvaei was one of the legal guards, and never took part in interrogations or in interrogations of the Tudehs.

7. Morteza Salehi (Sobhi). Head of the Gowhardasht Prison from 1361 (1982)-1363 (1984) and he is accused of many crimes during this period.

8. “Mujtaba” in 1361 (1982) and 1362 (1983) was an interrogator and in charge of the Tudehs in detention. Thanks to Revolutionary Guard intelligence, some Tudehs were arrested and their interrogations done by joint Committees were supervised by the Revolutionary Guards.

9. Mujtaba Mehrab Beigi. Third person who in Evin Prison was famously known as “Uncle Mujtaba”. He also was a Lajevardi guard, torturer, and tirkhalas (sniper?). He also in 1361 (1982) was killed on the frontlines. The street adjacent to the Imam Hossein Mosque in Tehran’s Imam Hossein Sqaure is named after him.

10. Morteza Eshraghi. Islamic Republic Public Prosecutor in Tehran and previously held the same position in Isfahan. He (a member of the three-person team involved in the 1367 prison killings) was and is not a cleric. Even Raeesi and Nasserian who are clerics, never wore their clerical garb whenever they visited the prison, especially during the 1367 killings. Morteza Eshraghi also now has a law office in Tehran. The address is Villa Avenue, on the corner of Sepand Avenue.

11. Majid Quddusi. Not related to Ayatollah Quddusi and known only by this one name. He hails from the Ab Mangul district in southeast Tehran. Since the administrators of that area’s prisons came from his neighborhood, after the victory of the Revolution he entered Qasr Prison. One of my friends related that “One night after the football game in our neighborhood was over, we were asked to volunteer to participate in the execution squads and that we go to Qasr Prison. Majid Quddusi was one of the people who that night went to Qasr Prison and stayed.” He afterwards was transferred to Evin Prison and after some time became in charge of Evin Section 325. In Fall 1360 (1981) he became in charge of the “Lab’s Office”. He then found a job as the public prosecutor’s assistant, and he would interview prisoners (on or close to) their date of release. During the 1367 killings he was in charge of beating up prisoners at Evin.

Quddusi after the 1367 killings, while a member of Iran’s Football Federation and head of the committee organizing football games, he also became in charge of Azadi Stadium. Along with his “legal” jobs, he is now one of the people heading Tehran’s Kowsar football team. Mehdi Arbabi is also one of the executives of Tehran’s Kowsar Football team.

Some of the people mistaken Majid Quddusi as the son of Ayatollah Quddusi one of the Revolution’s former public prosecutor, when in fact Ayatollah Quddusi has no son named Majid. He fathered two sons, one of which was killed in the war and other is currently not active in prison affairs.

12. Saeed Eslami. One of the chief interrogators at Evin Prison’s Section 7 who had an important role in the torturing and killing of Mujahidin prisoners. He is one of the most famous and ruthless interrogators at Evin. One of my friends who in 1362 (1983) saw Eslami related that he was seen clean-shaven and wearing nice clothes. My friend said that if he saw Eslami outside prison, it would have been impossible to recognize that he was Eslami. My friend, along with some other people who were going to be executed, were summoned to Section 7 and there Eslami gave them permission to remove their blindfolds so that they can look at him. My friend was the only person from that group of prisoners left alive. Eslami after Lajevardi’s resignation was head of the public prosecutors public relations unit, moving on to manage the prosecutor’s affairs, and finally in 1370 he became head of customs at Mehrabad Airport.

13. Saeed Emami. After serving as security aide at the Ministry of Intelligence, in 1368 (1989) then introduced himself as “Eslami”. Saeed Emami in his first years at the Ministry of Intelligence was active in the counterintelligence department (for outside the country) and after the internal reforms at the Ministry of Intelligence he became security aide.

These two people were never in the domestic security system at the same time. When Eslami was the god of Evin’s Section 7, Saeed Emami was in America and still was not in contact with the intelligence machine. When Saeed Emami first became involved in the security and intelligence system, Eslami did not hold a position in security and was busy with his pilfering at Mehrabad Airport customs.

14. Shaikh Mohammad Moqisehi, whose alias is Nasserian, was one of the interrogators and torturers at Evin’s Section 3 during the early 1980s and in the 1364 he became the Ghezelsar prison warden’s aide. During the Summer 1988 killings of prisoners at the Gowhardasht prison, he had an active and key presence. In addition to his post as aide and being well-known by the prisoners, he was supervisor of the Gowhardasht prison. He hails from Moqiseh, a village far from the suburbs of Davarzan in Sabzevar. This village based upon the 1385 census has a population of 644 people. The name of this city in historical (records) also was known as Moqitheh. For this reason his family in many places was known as Moqithehi but in fact the correct (spelling) is Moqisehi. Nasserian’s father, based upon accounts we heard, held a (high) rank in the gendarmerie, and more than ten people from his family were killed in the war or by the Mujahidin. Nasserian is now a judge at the Islamic Revolution Court on Moallem Street.

15. His brother was also the Islamic Revolution public prosecutor in Mashad who in the 1988 killings played an important role in the killing of prisoners in Mashad. He also for a while was deputy head of the Martyr’s Foundation.

16. Hojjatoleslam Nasseri whose real name is Ansari Najafabadi, was Ayatollah Montazeri’s representative in the prisons, and he did not have a role in the repression and even tried to help improve (living) conditions in the prisons. At Evin Prison in Ordibehesht 1367, Nasseri summoned five people from Row 1 (elected by the other prisoners) and warned them that the Regime was plotting against political prisoners and wanted to tell the prisoners not to give the Regime an excuse (to kill them). These warnings at that time were not well received by the prisoners.

17. Nasseri. A soldier in Evin’s Section 3 was tall and had a loud voice, he also had black hair and beard.

18. Seyed Kazem Kazemi. A founder of the Islamic Republic’s intelligence system and headed the unit on leftist groups at Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence during the darkest days of the country’s contemporary history. He and Hedayat headed one of the most secret intelligence unit in the country, his hands drenched with the blood of Iran’s most noble sons. Because of criminal accusations against him, he quickly became deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards. As one of the people in charge of Evin’s Section 209 and Towhid Prison, Kazemi was the Regime’s most key torturers in Tehran. Kazemi was born in 1336 in the Aradan district of Garmsar and in 1355 with the intention to continue his studies he went to Texas, and there he became a member of the Islamic Association of Texas. He after the victory of the Islamic Revolution returned home and was dispatched to Kurdistan to take part in the crackdown on Kurds. In 1364 while visiting military forces in the Talayeh warzone, a bullet hit Kazemi in the back and he died.

19. Mostafa Kazemi (alias Mousavi) was executive manager at the Ministry of Intelligence and was the second person involved in the famous case of the “Serial Murders”. Mostafa Kazemi began his work at the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence in Shiraz. His job there was also related to that of Alireza Alavi’s. Kazemi in his connection to the “Serial Murders” was arrested. Nobody knew what happened to him. The many rumors about him for example suggested that he left the country and was then extradited to Iran by the Ministry of Intelligence. It is arguable that these accuracies and inaccuracies are ambiguous. The murders of priests, the bomb explosion at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashad and blaming the Mujahidin for it are some of his deeds. He would go by the alias “Mousavi” when doing interviews with newspapers.

20. Haj Davood Rahmani. Born in the 1320s, he was an ironsmith who after the Revolution found his way in the Islamic Revolutionary Committee and later Evin, and afterwards he became warden of the Ghazahsar Prison in the summer of 1360 and remained at this post until July 1984. After being discharged, he returned to Evin and was active in the prison’s administration and the Division for Released Persons. Afterwards he returned to his old job. In recent years he changed his career and along with his sons went back to the shop where he made doors and windows, and sold bath material for buildings. His shop is located in Sarasyab Dolab, Motor Ab, in Southeast Tehran. In prison as well in prison accounts he was known as “Haj Davood”.

21. Davood Lashgari. A simple Evin guard was transferred to Gowhardasht Prison in 1982. After some time he became head of shifts at Gowhardasht, and there he assisted in the torturing of prisoners in interrogations quarters. Afterwards he was the prison’s deputy of security and patrol and had a special role in the beating and abusing of prisoners in 1987. He was also one of the key agents in the confrontation with and segregation of prisoners in the fall of 1987. Lashgari also played a special role in the 1988 killings. In some prisoner accounts he is known as “Haj Davood” and “Davood Lashgari”.

Anytime “Haj Davood” is mentioned in discourse about Gowhardasht Prison it refers to Davood Lashgari, and anytime “Haj Davood” is mentioned in discourse about Ghezelsar Prison it refers to Davood Rahmani.

22. Mousa Vaezi (alias Zamani). One of the people in charge of Evin intelligence, he was one of the planners of the 1988 killings. He until before the killings was not well-known, but after 1988 his disputes with the prisoners who lost their lives began. He was a student at the Polytechnic in Tehran. From his disputes it was clear that he was a sharp and complex agent. He after the 1988 killings and before the “Pishva” appointment (who for a long time headed Evin’s Section 1 interrogations) was in charge of Evin Prison.

23. Zamani. From 1363 to 1364, and after the reforms in prison, he had a key role in the disputes with prisoners pertaining to the placement of their names on the clemency list and or lessening their sentences. I don’t know whether or not his name is a pseudonym, but he was the one active in the 1988 killings. I also have no information on his background. But after the commissions sent to the prisons from the Judiciary’s Supreme Council he acquired considerable power and after 1364 had not been seen in prison.

24. Mousavi. Cultural charge d’affaires in Evin Prison, Ghezelsar, and Gowhardasht from 1362-1363. He was a cleric and I don’t if Mousavi was his name or pseudonym. He hailed from Zanjan and claimed that he found two hundred inconsistencies in Marxism. He would form classes in prison and his programs were broadcast via Video Central to the prisoners. According to him, before having a job in prison, he was one of the people in charge of Construction Jihad in Zanjan.

25. Mousavi Dadyar. He lived in Gorgan Street, Kaveh Street and after the restructuring in 1363 he became a legal assistant in Ghezelsar Prison. “Mousavi Dadyar” is his real name and after a while was also transferred to Qasr Prison where Nasserian and Arab succeeded him.

This information was taken from a report published on Iraj Mesdaghi’s website and we hope that in our summary was of necessary detail. To read the full report, please visit www.irajmesdaghi.com.
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علیرضاطاهری ومنیره آمدی قمی دوتن ازماموران پوششی وزارت اطلاعات دراجلاس فوریه ۲۰۱۰کمیسیون حقوق بشرژنو- سویس