The Ayatollahs' suicide bombers
Fox News, September 7, 2008
Transcript
In a move which could lead to a
deeper probe of the dark world of Iran-backed terror
networks in Iraq and their links to Lebanon's Hezbollah,
U.S. troops detained a senior official in the Iraqi
government, Ali al-Lami, at the Baghdad airport as he
returned from Beirut. A U.S. military statement said al-Lami,
suspected of ties to Iran, was taken into custody on August
28, for his role in planning a June 24 suicide bombing that
killed ten people, including four Americans. "The man has
been known to travel in and out of Iraq to neighboring
nations including Iran and Lebanon, where it is believed he
meets and helps run the Iranian-backed Special Groups in
Iraq," the statement said.
For nearly three decades, the mullahs' terror machine and
its many tentacles have been reaching outward. Since 2003,
Iraq has been singled out as a strategic training ground for
Tehran's terror machine. While some aspects of this
terrorist campaign have been exposed in recent years, little
has been said about Tehran's export of suicide bombers.
When the ayatollahs took 52 Americans hostage in Tehran in
1979, they were emboldened by the wavering international
response. They plotted another run - testing Washington's
resolve in April 1983 with a suicide truck bomb attack on
the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. On
October 23 the same year, another suicide truck bomb
targeted the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241
Marines. The Americans packed up and left, and the U.S.
policy of appeasing Iran was born.
When U.S.-led forces attacked Iraq, Tehran intensified its
recruitment and training of Iraqi suicide bombers as an
integral part of its multi-pronged terror campaign. These
efforts heightened after the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps' (IRGC's) rise to power in all branches of the
theocratic regime. This cunning alliance between Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei and the IRGC's top brass, catapulted
former Qods Force commander Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the
presidency in 2005.
Under Ahmadinejad, the industry of recruiting and training
suicide bombers — Iranian or otherwise — has grown
exponentially. In addition to clandestine training centers,
several state-sponsored centers, billed as "non-governmental
organizations," are actively and openly recruiting and
training what Islamic extremists call "poor men's missiles."
During his tenure as mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad was
instrumental in creating these terror outfits. He provided
political cover for them and placed the municipality's
resources at their disposal.
One, the "Headquarters for Commemoration of Martyrs of the
Global Islamic Movement," gained notoriety in 2004, when it
was inaugurated as an NGO whose mission was to recruit
"suicide volunteers" to combat "World Arrogance." Spokesman
Mohammad Ali Samadi told a state-run daily on the sidelines
of a three-day event commemorating "martyred" suicide
bombers that nearly 2,000 people had already registered. The
application distributed at the event had three categories of
suicide operations from which to choose: those targeting
U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Jews in Israel or Salman Rushdie.
On October 2005, only months after Ahmadinejad's
inauguration, Samadi told the media that "40,000 have
already signed up for martyrdom-seeking operations,"
boasting that they had been, "organized into three
battalions of volunteers with more to follow in due course."
Samadi later said in July 2006, that the number of would be
bombers had grown to 55,000.
The IRGC and its elite terrorist arm, the Qods Force, direct
the activities of these terror NGOs, and top IRGC commanders
regularly attend their public events. For example Brig. Gen.
Salami, a confidant of Ahmadinejad and Director of
Operations or the IRGC Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the
keynote speaker at the commemoration event. His address was,
not surprisingly, entitled "Suicide operations: A security
and military strategy perspective."
Mohammad-Reza Jafari, a senior IRGC officer, told the pro-Ahmadinejad
weekly Parto Sokhan in summer 2005 that a military base
under his command, the "Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison," had
begun to recruit and train volunteers for "martyrdom-seeking
operations." He added that "a Martyrdom-seeking Division
will be formed for each province in the country, organized
in brigades, battalions and companies." In an earlier
interview with another publication, he stressed his ties
with Ahmadinejad, saying: "I have personally met Dr.
Ahmadinejad, the distinguished mayor of Tehran. He is a
Bassiji [hard-core fundamentalist] and I recommend that
other officials make him a role model."
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Kossari, another senior IRGC commander
and director of the Security Bureau of Iran's Armed Forces,
ominously referred to the U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq
in fall 2005, saying: "We know all of the enemies' weak
points and know what to do against them. Today, we have
martyrdom-seeking individuals who are ready to strike at
these sensitive points."
Hassan Abbasi, director of the "Doctrinal Analysis Center
for Security without Borders," the IRGC's think tank for
ideological theories rationalizing the regime's strategic
use of terrorism, was even blunter. On April 16, 2006, the
Sunday Times of London reported that the IRGC had formed a
force called the Special Unit of Martyrdom-Seekers to
organize more than 40,000 trained suicide bombers "to strike
at British and American targets if the nation's nuclear
sites are attacked." It quoted Abbasi as saying: "We are
ready to attack American and British sensitive points if
they attack Iran's nuclear facilities." He added that 29
western targets had been identified, some of them "quite
close" to the Iranian border in Iraq.
To be sure, the ayatollahs seek to score psychological and
propaganda points with their hype about suicide bombers.
Sowing fear is their favorite method of intimidating their
"enemies," both without and within. At a minimum, they
believe this terrorist saber-rattling will inject some badly
needed vigor into their fast depleting ideological base.
Nothing energizes these guys' fanatic followers better than
the specter of a "human missile" blowing up "infidels."
It is, however, very naïve and downright reckless to
discount their threats as hollow rhetoric. Just imagine the
death and destruction, if even a small fraction of the
purported 55,000 suicide recruits turns out to be the real
deal. Nevertheless, the Ayatollahs are extremely vulnerable
inside the country, as anti-government demonstrations mount
throughout Iran. Is the West finally prepared to recognize
this and adjust its policies accordingly?
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, 2007).
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.
