Iranian Commander Pledges Support For Attacks On Israel
Commander of Iran’s extra-territorial Quds Force, Esmail Qaani praised “Islamic resistance” forces and vowed to support “Palestinian heroes” in a speech on Friday.
Commander of Iran’s extra-territorial Quds Force, Esmail Qaani praised “Islamic resistance” forces and vowed to support “Palestinian heroes” in a speech on Friday.
Qaani took credit that Palestinian militants are conducting “30 operations daily” against Israel and emphasized that “This is the result of the resistance front and global Islamic mobilization.”
‘Resistance’ front is the Iranian regime’s jargon referring to its regional allies, such as Syria, and militant groups being financed and supported by Tehran, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Large-scale Palestinian attacks against Israel took place in early April, as Iranian officials triumphantly claimed that the end of the Jewish state was near. After a lull fighting resumed earlier this week when Israel killed several Islamic Jihad leaders in a targeted air strike. Although Hamas, the largest Palestinian group did not enter the fighting this time, Islamic Jihad has fired hundreds of rockets and Israel has continued air strikes at the group.
Last week, Qaani claimed that Iran has humiliated Israel by organizing the “Islamic resistance” and said, At this point, Israel has reached a level of humiliation that it has surrounded itself with barbed wire and radars to prevent infiltration.”
But in his Friday speech in the religious city of Mashhad Qaani went farther and said that Iran has organized “a global network of resistance,” to defend Muslims and their honor.
The Iranian regime as a Shiite Muslim political force has limited appeal with Sunni Muslims and its reach is mainly among Shiites in Middle Eastern countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon. However, it directs billions of dollars a year to finance an array of militia forces and their political networks. For example, it has spent at least $50 billion to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria during 12 years of civil war.
Qaani’s speech was on the 10thanniversary of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, an Afghan force that Iran organized in 2013 to fight in Syria. Unconfirmed reports indicate that more than 2,000 Afghans were killed during battles in Syria in 2010s.
The Quds commander lavishly praised the founder of the Fatemiyoun, Alireza Tavassoli, known as Abu Hamed, who was killed near Deraa in Syria in February 2015 in a battle with Assad’s opponents. He was a close associate of Qassem Soleimani, the former Quds commander who was killed in a targeted US air strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
Abu Hamed, who was a Shiite Muslim, was born in Afghanistan in 1962 and fought against the Soviets but fled and settled in Iran in the mid-1980s, where he received religious education and then was recruited to establish the Fatemiyoun Brigade.
“The resistance front has grown from a seed and a young plant into an extensive axis that connects the various points of the resistance forces across the world,” Qaani said, praising what his predecessor Soleimani spent nearly 20 years organizing.
He went on to say that Iran’s revolutionary government in the 1980s and later Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei played the main role in launching the “resistance front,” that today even enemies admit decides the outcome of battles. He claimed that because of Iran’s leadership, the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthis in Yemen are ready to help the Palestinians.
The international rights body said the prisoners arrested in the oil-rich Khuzestan province had been denied their right to a fair trial and their detention is “arbitrary”.
The execution of Adnan Ghobeishavi, 25, Moein Khanfari, 28, Mohammad Reza Moghaddam, 29, Salem Mousavi, 39, Habib Deris, 42, and Ali Majdam, 43 could take place at any time after a Supreme Court ruling on March 6 upheld the sentences against them.
In a separate tweet Amnesty International also voiced concern over the fate of three other detainees in Esfahan.
“Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi are at imminent risk of execution at central Esfahan prison (also known as Dastgerd prison) after Iran’s Supreme Court upheld their unjust convictions and death sentences in early May 2023.”
After nationwide anti-government protests last year, which is still not fully contained, the Iranian regime has embarked on a wave of executions that has seen dozens hanged this year. Activists are concerned that the executions aim to intimidate the population from further protests.
The regime used overwhelming force and military weapons to kill more than 500 civilians during the protests. Hundreds of others received permanent bodily injuries, including loss of eyes because of shotgun pellets fired at the faces of protesters. More than 20,000 were arrested.
The London-based human rights watchdog said on May 12 that the six should have access to their families, lawyers and adequate medical care pending their release.
“Their group trial was grossly unfair. The men were denied lawyers of their own choosing and were never allowed access to their court-appointed lawyer, even at trial. The authorities have barred them and their lawyer from accessing their casefile and verdict,” Amnesty said.
According to the report, the men's "torture-tainted" confessions were used by the Revolutionary Court in Ahvaz to sentence them to death on February 14 on the charge of "waging war against God" following the armed operations conducted by a separatist group in which members of the security forces were killed.
Amnesty said that the men, who have denied the charges, were neither allowed lawyers of their own choosing nor access to their court-appointed lawyers during trial, and that the authorities prevented them from seeing their case files and verdicts.
IRGC agents subjected one of the detainees to "sleep deprivation, waterboarding, electric shocks, beatings, and hanging upside down while submerging his head in water," according to the group.
Amnesty expressed concern that three other Iranian men are at imminent risk of execution in Isfahan after the Supreme Court affirmed their "unjust" convictions earlier this month.
Since late April, at least 60 people have been executed across the country for charges that under international law should not result in the death penalty, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).
However, while according to Etemad Online Ta'eb insisted that Rouhani should be tried, he commented that his trial is not the establishment's immediate priority.
Several social media users commenting on the report said that Ta'eb himself should be tried for security breaches during his tenure as the head of IRGC's Intelligence Organization. He was removed from his post last year after a series of serious sabotage acts in Iran attributed to Israel and a major case of infiltration by Israel was revealed. A top security official, Alireza Akbari was subsequently hanged on charges of espionage for foreign countries.
This was not the first time Iran's hardliners call for Rouhani's trial or accuse him of pursuing accommodation with the West and for concluding a nuclear agreement in 2015.
Rouhani recently said that he would file a complaint against a hardliner member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution who has accused him and his aides of espionage.
Attacks on Rouhani by hardliners escalated when he was quoted last week as having said that an agreement with the United States was at hand before he handed over the presidency to Ebrahim Raisi in 2021.
Rouhani who kept a low profile for 18 months after his presidency, began making public statements critical of the current economic and political situation in Iran and convening frequent meetings with his former aides. According to Entekhab website, which is close to Rouhani, on Friday, he said sarcastically that everyone expected Iran's problems to be solved now that a consolidated conservative government was in office.
Earlier attacks in April targeted Rouhani for suggesting a referendum on the country's key issues. Not only the hardliners in the government, but Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lashed out at critics for the suggestion they said would undermine the regime's authority. Khamenei even went out of his way to say that the people are not knowledgeable enough to take part in referenda.
Rouhani has also criticized the current government for high inflation surpassing 50 percent and increasing poverty. He also criticized the government for barring reformist and moderate candidates from running in elections.
Some of Rouhani's allies like the former chief of the parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, say that he should have fought harder to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA. He said this week that détente and solving the nuclear dispute were among Rouhani's promises to the nation and he should have done more to that end.
"At least Rouhani and his aides should have explained to the nation about why the negotiations with the United States and Europe were not fruitful," Falahatpisheh added.
Meanwhile, foreign policy analyst Mehdi Motaharnia said in an interview with Rouydad24 website that what is transpiring between Rouhani and the hardliners is part of a crisis of decision-making in Iran. Motaharnia further opined that consolidating political power in Iran by handing over the whole establishment to conservatives was the regime's biggest strategic mistake.
The decision to engineer the elections and allow hardliners to form an absolute majority in parliament and win the presidency in 2020-2021, could have only come from Khamenei.
He said that the new government made "revolutionary rhetoric" the driving force of its foreign policy and brought the country face to face with a serious challenge it cannot resolve.
Referring to the tensions between Iran and the international community, Motaharnia stressed that the year 2023 is the year in which the Iranian government needs to take big and hard decisions to ensure the regime's stability.