IRGC Believed To Be Behind Attacks On Jewish Centers In Germany: Media
German media say investigations are underway about the role of nearly a dozen Iran IRGC-linked people who are accused of launching attacks on Jewish centers.
German media say investigations are underway about the role of nearly a dozen Iran IRGC-linked people who are accused of launching attacks on Jewish centers.
Die Welt daily that Iran’s Revolutionary Gurad manages such operations outside of Iran by hiring criminals.
Police has now launched an investigation to find out more about a terrorist cell in North Rhine-Westphalia, said Welt, adding that one of the suspects had been in radical circles for some time.
Germany and the European Union are discussing the listing of the IRGC as a terrorist organization for its role in violence on protesters in Iran.
In November, an unknown person fired several times at the door of a synagogue in downtown Essen west of Germany.
Nobody got hurt, but the investigators assume the act was part of a series of anti-Semitic attacks probably launched by a cell of terrorists managed by the IRGC, the report said.
Last month, a German TV channel reported the country's security institutions believe the Revolutionary Guard is behind the attacks on Jewish centers in the country.
On November 18, a German-Iranian was detained on suspicion of committing arson at a synagogue in the city of Bochum in Germany.
Local police suspected that the man is connected to Ramin Yektaparast, the founder of the Hell’s Angels group in the city of Mönchengladbach.
German Media reported Yektaparast fled to Iran last year to escape trial for the brutal murder of another member of the gang in 2014.
The suspect might also have been responsible for the attack on the old synagogue in the city of Essen, said German officials.
On the sidelines of ceremonies to kick off joint military drills codenamed Zulfaqar 1400 in the Sea of Oman on Friday, an IRGC Commander Major General Gholam-Ali Rashid warned regional countries against any cooperation with Israel in threatening the Islamic Republic’s national security by providing bases or facilities.
“Those bases as well as the points of aggression -- which is the occupying regime of Israel will be the target of attacks by our armed forces.”
Noting that the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic, the traditional Army and the Revolutionary Guard concur that Israel is the most significant threat to Iran's national security, he said that the Islamic Republic Armed Forces consider military exercises as a “half war” and even a “war before war.”
Zulfaqar 1400 began with the key motto of “self-confidence, power, sustainable security” in an area stretching from the eastern sector of the strategic Strait of Hormuz to the northern tip of the Indian Ocean, with the first hours of the maneuver dedicated to safeguarding the coasts.
“The Navy’s rangers used improved arms and equipment to carry out the operation that lasted until dawn, and the naval forces used Dehlavieh, TOW, and shoulder-fired Misagh missiles against the enemy’s aggression on coastal lines,” Brigadier General Alireza Sheikh, spokesman for the drills, said.