Iran Calls Extra-Regional Forces Cause Of Insecurity In Mideast

The embassy released a statement on Thursday, saying that the Boeing 747 registered as a Venezuelan cargo plane was used by the Iranian company Mahan Air and transported “a group of Iranian officials, including a senior executive of the airline Qeshm Fars Air.” It was referring to Gholamreza Ghasemi, who apparently was the pilot and is a member of the IRGC and a former board member of Fars Air Qeshm accused of transporting weapons for Hezbollah during the civil war in Syria. 

“The State of Israel is particularly concerned about the activity of the Iranian airlines Mahan Air and Qeshm Fars Air in Latin America, companies dedicated to arms trafficking and the transfer of people and equipment that operate for the Quds Force,” the statement read. 

The embassy referred to an assassination attempt on Israeli citizens in the city of Bogotá by “criminals who worked for the Quds Force in Colombia,” adding that such events revealed that IRGC’s Quds force tries to consolidate its influence in South America. 

Argentina said on June 15 no member of IRGC Quds Force was among the crew, and Ghasemi just shared a name with a Quds Force member. 

Ghasemi is also reportedly a relative of current Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, whose appointment by President Ebrahim Raisi triggered condemnation from Argentina given his suspected role in the 1994 AMIA bombing that killed 85 people and injured over 300.

Iran has denied that the Boeing 747 belongs to Iran’s Mahan Airlines, sanctioned by the US in 2008 for links to the Quds (Qods) Force.

Iran International asked State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, during his press briefing on Thursday about the reaction of the United States to the UN experts’ concerns about violations by Iran.

"This is why we condemned the use of violence against these peaceful protesters. We made the point that we support the right of these protesters to peacefully exercise their fundamental freedoms," Price responded.

A group of UN human rights experts expressed serious concerns about the violent crackdown against civil society in Iran, especially against members of workers’ unions and teachers on June 15.

"We will continue to hold Iran accountable for human rights abuses that take place inside of Iran and every strain of nefarious activity that it undertakes," Price added when asked if the Biden administration's hope for returning to JCPOA would prevent it from imposing human rights sanctions on Iran.

After year-long negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement failed to reach a successful conclusion, the US imposed fresh sanctions Thursday on several companies and individuals accused of violating current sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.

The teachers held a gathering in Karaj, near the capital Tehran on Thursday and chanted slogans against the government, and called for the release of their colleagues arrested in previous rounds of protests. 

More than 20 people were reportedly arrested on the eve of the protests in Kurdish majority provinces in western Iran.

In Tehran, sporadic protest rallies were reported but security forces and special units were present in front of the parliament building in large numbers to prevent the demonstrations. 

The situation was the same in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, where security forces cordoned off the areas where a gathering were planned.

Numerous pictures of teachers' gatherings in the cities of Sari, Zanjan, Shahrekord, Ardabil, Khorramabad, Malayer, Marivan, Sanandaj, Kermanshah, Andimeshk, Hamedan, Kashmar, and Bandar Abbas have been published in social media.

Teachers have been holding frequent protests for nearly a year, but the political situation in Iran has worsened in recent months, with rising food prices and a growing perception of government inefficiency and corruption.

Four years of deep economic crisis in Iran following the introduction of United States ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions in 2018 has led to a sharp increase in living costs and labor unrest.

People from different walks of life, including nurses, firefighters, and even judiciary department employees and prison guards, have held protest rallies or strikes to demand higher salaries.

At least three admins of separate channels on the social media app Telegram have been arrested by the IRGC’s internal security service, the Guard’s official Telegram channel said on Thursday.

The announcement said that these Telegram channels, which were reporting on internal Iranian politics and rumors, “published classified information and documents,” and spread “fake and selective news to sow discord among high-level officials.”

In recent years the Revolutionary Guard has set up multiple social media accounts, including on Telegram, to spread its version of events. This extensive network is part of what has come to be known as IRGC’s “cyber army”.

The announcement made by the IRGC Intelligence Organization did not reveal the names of those detained, but reports circulating on social media in Iran say one person is Ali Gholhaki, a journalist who supports hardliners in the political establishment and often publishes first-hand news about impending decisions or developments.

One expert Iran International spoke with was surprised if Gholhaki would have been involved in disclosing classified information. His track record shows he is a well-informed insider whose political revelations often prove to be correct after a few days.

One example was during the presidential election in June 2021, when he was the first to report that the constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, was set to disqualify a few key candidates.

Gholhaki and the three Telegram channels mentioned are all close to the Revolutionary Guard and it is not clear why they were arrested and what else might be behind the move.

The IRGC announcement mentions no examples of what information the three channels disclosed.

At this stage, speculations among observers generally relate to possible factional infighting.

One theory involves parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who was discredit when similar Telegram channels were involved in disclosing that his family took a luxury shopping trip to Turkey in April amid an economic crisis and rising poverty.

Ghalibaf at the time threatened legal action against those who “defamed” him, but later other events pushed the scandal into relative obscurity.

Another theory relates to a reported clash at a recent meeting of the Expediency Council, another constitutional body, where supposedly hardliner politician Saeed Jalili and former parliament speaker, moderate-conservative Ali Larijani argued about Iran’s nuclear policies. These same type of Telegram channels leaked that the two had a fierce argument when Jalili proposed pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT).

Yet another theory is that the IRGC intelligence wants to show it is in charge and omnipotent after repeated deadly incidents among it personnel in recent weaks.

Two commanders of the Guard’s extraterritorial Quds (Qods) Force died in May, one shot multiple times in broad daylight outside his home in Tehran and another fell form the rooftop or balcony of his house. Immediately suspicions fell on Israel that has apparently been behind a series of spectacular attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military sites, as well as key individuals.

Following the deaths of the Quds officers, at least two weapons experts working for the IRGC also died mysteriously.

These sort of evets since July 2020 have dealt a serious blow to the image of IRGC Intelligence, as Iranians on social media make fun of its inability to protect its own, while it claims to intimidate enemies.

The government’s Rewards for Justice program announced the award on Wednesday, saying he is involved in smuggling and other criminal operations to support the Iran-backed Lebanese group.

“Qasir is also a critical conduit for financial disbursements from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) that are used to fund Hezbollah's activities," the statement said.

According to the US government, he also helps oversee several front companies used to mask the IRGC-QF’s role in the sale of oil and other extractives, a crucial source of income for Hezbollah, the Quds (Quds) force, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and other illicit actors.

“In addition, Qasir leads Hezbollah’s Unit 108, which coordinates closely with the IRGC-QF to facilitate the transfer of weapons, technology, and other support from Syria to Lebanon,” the statement said.

Earlier in the week, the US government’s Rewards for Justice program offered up to $15 million for information that can disrupt Iran’s IRGC and its Quds Force financial networks. The Quds Force is a branch of the IRGC that conducts operations beyond Iran’s borders.

The announcement can be seen as additional pressure on the Islamic Republic as it continues to support militant groups across the Middle East and beyond, after negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA came to a halt in March.