Tehran's Terror Inc.
Fox News, May 8, 2008
Alireza Jafarzadeh (Foreign Affairs Analyst)
Transcript
Almost a week after the U.S.
Department of State branded the ayatollahs’ regime in Iran
as the “most active state sponsor of terrorism,” there are
reports from Baghdad that the Hezbollah of Lebanon has been
training Iraqi terrorists at camps near Tehran. Tehran’s
Terror Inc. certainly knows a thing or two about the art of
outsourcing.
According to the New York Times, “the account of Hezbollah’s
role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were
captured in Iraq late last year” after they had returned
from training in Iran., In a training program described,
according to the Times, by the American officials as
“training the trainers,” the captured terrorists were part
of a “class of 16 militants who crossed into Iran from
southern Iraq and were taken to a camp near Tehran.”
While these reports corroborate with the information I
revealed in January and March of 2007, they are far from the
whole story. Last year, I received a number of intelligence
reports from my sources inside the Tehran government and
affiliated with the underground network of Iran’s main
opposition, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK/PMOI), about
an extensive, elaborate program to train large numbers of
Iraqi terrorists in Iran.
The plan is led by the Qods Force, the elite terrorist wing
of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). IRGC
Brigadier General Ahmad Forouzandeh, known by his nickname
"Abu Shahab” in Iraq, is in charge of the training program.
IRGC Brigadier General Mohammad Shahlaei, a veteran Qods
commander, supervises the recruitment of Iraqi militias.
To minimize the risk of exposure and logistical bottlenecks,
the Qods Force scatters these would-be terrorists in several
of its bases near the cities of Tehran, Karaj, Qom, and
Isfahan. Qods bases in provinces close to the Iraqi border,
such as Kermanshah, Ilam, Kurdistan, and Khuzestan, are also
utilized.
These camps offer a full menu of courses, from urban
guerrilla warfare and sniper targeting, to launching mortars
and installing explosive packs. Let’s not leave out the
instructions on how to fire shoulder-launched anti-aircraft
missiles. The duration of each course is 20 days. Much of
the training is done by veteran commanders of the Lebanese
Hezbollah who, like their students, speak Arabic and are
more than eager to share their experiences with the latest
unconventional warfare tactics.
The Qods Force’s Imam Ali Base in Tehran is at the center of
the ayatollahs’ terrorist training program. Tucked away in a
quiet area of northern Tehran close to Saad-abad Palace, it
used to accommodate would-be terrorists from more than a
dozen countries. Run by IRGC commander Hossein Lotfi, Imam
Ali Base is now dedicated entirely to the training of Iraqi
militia. One of the base’s main commanders, IRGC Brigadier
General Orouj, was previously a senior commander of the Qods
Force in Lebanon.
The trainees at Imam Ali are usually divided into small
groups of eight or so for the sake of secrecy. Each group
has two trainers: an Iranian and a member of Hezbollah.
According to information from my sources in Iran, in October
2006, several groups of Iraqi Shiite militants from the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI
(currently known as the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council) and
from Sadr City in Baghdad, were trained in this base.
The Hezbollah base in Varamin, south of Tehran, is another
key destination for Iraqi students of terrorism. Before
2003, it was primarily used to train the Badr Corp — the
military wing of SCIRI. With the outbreak of the Iraq war,
the IRGC promptly dispatched the Badr Corp into Iraq, and
the base was handed over to the Qods Force to handle the
soon-expected Iraqi militias. The Hezbollah base is
currently run by a veteran Qods Force commander named Haj
Ayoub. Two of the non-Iranian trainers are Khalili and Vajih.
On January 2, 2007, the training of a group of 50 Iraqi
militants from Sadr City was completed at this base.
In addition to these bases near Tehran, the Qods Forces also
extensively uses the Bahonar base in Karaj, 25 miles west of
Tehran, the Kenesht Valley base in the border province of
Kermanshah, and the Isfahan training base, to instruct
would-be terrorists from neighboring Iraq.
The unrelenting escalation of Tehran’s terrorist meddling in
Iraq has prompted American officials both in Washington and
Baghdad to speak out. This welcome – albeit overdo –
outspokenness by the United States must, however, be backed
up by closer scrutiny of Iraq’s porous border with Iran.
Closing the gaps will be difficult, in light of the many
years of reckless neglect, particularly by the British
forces in the south. But heightened vigilance will go a long
way toward choking off Tehran’s means of providing funds,
arms, and most importantly, trained terrorists and Qods
Force personnel.
Media reports of U.S. plan to upgrade facilities at Camp
Delta and the Al Kut Air Base in southern Iraq are welcome
news. The facility intended as “a strategic overwatch base”
is located just 35 miles from the Iranian border and could
play a decisive role in blocking Tehran’s use of the border
to further its terrorist agenda in Iraq.
An increasingly visible determination by the United States
to counter Iran’s “destructive role in Iraq” which, if
unchecked, poses “the greatest long-term threat to the
viability of a democratic Iraq,” has no doubt made an
impression. Despite their strategic gains in Iraq, thanks to
Washington’s “see no evil, hear no evil (from Tehran)”
approach in the immediate post-war period, the ayatollahs
know quite well that this trend is not irreversible. One
encouraging sign is the rush — at least publicly — by
Tehran’s surrogates in the Iraqi government to distance
themselves from their paymasters in Tehran.
Those capitals still bent on “sweetening” the already
generous package of incentives they have offered Tehran to
stop its drive for nuclear weapons would do well to take
note. They have sponsored three rounds of negotiations with
Iran’s regime over Iraq’s security; they have offered all
sorts of incentives before, during, and after the war to
dissuade Tehran’s terrorists; they have even bombed the
bases of Tehran’s democratic opposition, the non-belligerent
PMOI/MEK. None of these deterred Tehran. Decisive
counter-measures can, and will.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is a FOX News Channel Foreign Affairs
Analyst and the author of "The
Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear
Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
