IRGC News Media Denounces Retaliation Ruling In Protester’s Killing

Speaking to state news agency ISNA, Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani said, “In this plan, it's not just about building walls; rather, in border regions, we have various programs that include creating obstacles, using modern equipment and advanced cameras, helicopters, drones, UAVs, and telecommunications and armaments facilities. Equipment and training for border forces are also important, and all of these together ensure the security of the borders.”

Iran faces significant security concerns, particularly along its border with Afghanistan, stemming from the presence and activities of terrorist groups like ISIS. The porous nature of the Afghan border, combined with the ongoing instability and conflict in Afghanistan, poses a direct threat to Iran.

ISIS, in particular, has been a major concern. The extremist ideology and violent tactics employed by ISIS militants have raised fears of potential infiltration into Iranian territory and the spread of radicalization among vulnerable populations, including Afghan refugees residing in Iran.

Iran has experienced sporadic incidents of violence and terrorist attacks attributed to ISIS such as a double bombing in January in Kerman which killed around 100 people.

Iran's fear of ISIS along its Afghan border reflects the broader security concerns it faces in a volatile region. However, Iran itself has been accused of providing support to groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and certain factions within Iraq and Yemen.

A security source revealed to Reuters that the strike resulted in the death of Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. Additionally, Iran's Arabic language Al Alam TV reported the complete destruction of the Iranian consulate building in Syria.

According to follow-up reports, General Mohammad-Hadi Haji-Rahimi, a deputy of Quds Force general Zahedi, was also killed in the strike.

The Iranian ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, who was not injured, said at least five people had been killed in the attack and that Tehran's response would be "harsh".

Later on Monday, the IRGC in an official statement confirmed the deaths of Zahedi and Haji-Rahimi, as well as five other officers identified as Hossein Amanollahi (earlier identified as Amirollah), Mehdi Jalalati, Mohsen Sedaghat, Ali Agha-Babaei, and Ali Salehi Rouzbahani.

Syria's SANA state news agency confirmed significant destruction to a building in the Mezzeh neighborhood, with neighboring structures also affected.

Reuters reporters at the site in the Mezzeh district of Damascus saw emergency workers clambering atop rubble of a destroyed building inside the diplomatic compound, adjacent to the main embassy building. Emergency vehicles were parked outside. An Iranian flag hung from a pole in front of the debris.

The Syrian foreign minister and interior minister were both spotted at the scene.

Israel, which has repeatedly hit Iranian targets during the six-month war in Gaza, declined to comment on the incident, following its usual practice, Reuters reported. An Israeli military spokesperson said: "We do not comment on reports in the foreign media."

Israel's recent airstrikes have intensified in the wake of Iran-backed Hamas's invasion of Israel on October 7, with a focus on targeting senior Iranian personnel and bases associated with Iran's IRGC. Several militia forces in Syria have come under fire and Zahedi is the latest commander targeted in a series of assassinations this year alone.

Iranian state television said several Iranian "diplomats" had been killed. Iran's Tasnim news agency said five people were killed in the Israeli strike. Syria's SANA state news agency reported an unspecified number of deaths and injuries.

Iran's involvement in the Syrian civil war, which began over a decade ago in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime has been a source of contention with Israel. Viewing the presence of Iranian forces in Syria as a direct threat, Israel has consistently targeted their bases and weapons concentrations since 2017.

An Israeli military spokesperson said: "We do not comment on reports in the foreign media."

Citing information from the police, Zeraati said that the investigation has made good progress and the investigation was still ongoing. He added that "The suspects had purposefully planned this attack and did/do not pose a threat to the public living in London/UK."

He also thanked thousands of people who have expressed outrage for the attack and expressed support an sympathy for him.

"Firstly I want to thank you for all your calls, messages and support; I am really sorry that I am not able to respond to all of them. The amount of your sympathy, kindness and love in past few days has been and is the greatest and best energy for my recovery process," Zeraati posted on social media on Monday.

"Fortunately, I am feeling better, recovering & I have been discharged from the hospital. My wife and I are residing at a safe place under the supervision of the Met Police," he added

Zeraati was stabbed as he emerged from his home on March 29 in south London by unknown assailants. Iran International has faced threats from the Iranian government for the past 20 months, and other journalists at the network faced imminent threats of attacks in 2022 and 2023.

Although the police have not issued a statement about who the assailants were, Iran's Islamic regime has conducted hundreds of attacks against dissidents and journalists outside the country over the past 45 years.

During the referendum days, I was a 19-year-old youth serving as a poll worker at a rural polling station near Shiraz. The Islamic Republic’s regime has been the subject of my constant study from that point onwards.

On March 30th and 31st, 1979, villagers showed up at the polls enthusiastically wishing the new regime would pay attention to their demands and problems. Most of them had believed the promises of the new leaders with unwavering simplicity. In that village, the voting result fell approximately 5% below the final national tally – with a dozen blank ballots and votes cast for Iranian singing divas Googoosh and Hayedeh. Invalid votes were an occurrence that started from the very first election conducted under the Islamic Republic’s regime.

Today, the young generation that has experienced the Islamist regime’s policies first-hand have five questions in regards to the 1979 referendum. And, they have the right to question the 1979 generation’s actions – and they deserve answers based on facts on the ground, documents, and memoires.

Here are some of the new generation’s questions:

1. Are the results of that referendum reliable?

The reported 97% "yes" vote from 99% of Iranian voters in the referendum couldn't be verified, because independent and international observers were not invited to monitor it and there was no transparency.

It is a fact that a significant number of people participated in that referendum; however, giving a firm opinion about the percentage is impossible, much like in all types of elections in the Islamic Republic.

It is also a fact that Khomeini deceived the Iranian people about the future of their country by posing the question of whether they wanted an Islamic Republic (“yes” or “no”) with maximum ambiguity. This is because he simultaneously advocated for the totalitarian system of the Guardian Jurist (Supreme Leader) in his lectures in Najaf, while confirming his support for the French Republic during his stay in Neauphle-le-Château.

In this referendum, people voted based on their understanding of the terms "Islamic Republic" without knowledge of Khomeini's lectures, or how his aides, Ebrahim Yazdi and Sadegh Ghotbzadeh engineered Khomeini's words and conveyed them to the Western media. One notable and infamous moment happened when a reporter on the plane carrying Khomeini from Paris to Tehran, asked the cleric how he felt on the day of his return to Iran, and Khomeini replied "heech" in Persian, meaning "nothing".

Sadegh Ghotbzadeh used the phrase "no comment" instead of the English equivalent "nothing," which has an entirely different meaning.

2. Why did Khomeini hold a referendum less than two months after the revolution, and during Norouz?

Khomeini was familiar with the psychology of the Iranian masses. He knew he had to strike while the iron was hot.

During Norouz vacation, which began two weeks prior to the referendum, all newspapers in the country were closed.

He also knew that he could sell the new regime, born out of terrorism and bombing and lacking any governance experience, to the general public, only by relying solely on emotions and ignorance.

The people who considered themselves victorious in overthrowing the royal system were proud of this achievement. They lived in the empty dreams spun by revolutionaries, such as the promise of free water, electricity, and public buses, alongside ideals of spirituality and justice; they could have woken up after one or two years and Khomeini's picture would have no longer been visible on the moon – as was claimed by many in the early days of the revolution.

For this reason, it was necessary to drag the masses to the voting booths with stereotyped questions – and without wasting any time.

3. How did the different political groups react to this referendum?

Most political groups participated in the referendum and voted “yes”.

The Islamist groups fully participated in the referendum without any conditions and voted “yes”. Nationalist forces also participated and voted positively.

The vote of Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) was positive but conditional. The Tudeh Party of Iran and other older communists voted “yes”, but the People's Fada’iyan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party boycotted the referendum.

Political groups enjoyed freedom of speech and press in the early months of the regime, before it had fully consolidated its power.

4. Was there any talk about the form of the new regime in the public sphere in the days preceding the referendum?

If you examine the press, news programs, and conversations in Iran before the referendum, you'll find no mention of guardianship of the jurist, Islamization, elimination of dissent, or compulsory hijab by the members of the Revolutionary Council, most of whom were clerics.

All of these discussions began during the drafting of the new constitution and the meetings of the Assembly of Experts to revise the draft.

The Iranian people were completely in the dark about what would happen to the governance system from February 11, 1979, to March 31, 1979.

5. Are the results of that referendum valid today?

In a system where only three referendums have been held in 45 years—namely, one referendum for creating the system and two referendums for the vote on the constitution (with a 99% positive vote and 85% participation in 1979) and its revision (with a 99% positive vote and 54% participation in 1989)—one cannot rely solely on the referendum for the legitimacy of a political system.

No referendum has been held for 35 years. Today, only less than ten percent of the country's population is over 63 years old, who were over 18 years old in 1979 and could vote then.

Today, the result of the referendum on the Islamic Republic has simply expired – even if it was reliable.

Dermer, a key advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former ambassador of Israel to the United States, personally reached out to Zeraati on Monday morning to convey his wishes for a swift recovery.

In the phone call, Dermer condemned the attack, suspected by many to have been carried out by covert Iranian regime security agents.

Dermer and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were both interviewed by Zeraati on his program, “Final Word”, last year.

This is believed to have further fueled Tehran's anger, leading to a crackdown on journalists expressing critical opinions of authorities, both domestically and internationally since the nationwide anti-regime 2022 uprising.

Several Iran International journalists have faced death threats and foiled assassination attempts orchestrated by Iranian regime security forces on British territory, prompting the temporary relocation of the broadcaster’s London offices to Washington last year.

The attack on Zeraati comes shortly after the disclosure of leaked top-secret intelligence documents, revealing Tehran's targeting of several UK-based personnel of Iran International TV. These threats extended to their family members based in Iran, with the imposition of financial sanctions amidst the nationwide protests in 2019.

The broadcast network says it was aware of the intimidation tactics at the time, but the documents, obtained by Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) hackers, offered indisputable proof that Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and judicial officials were coordinating the harassment efforts.

Additionally, ITV reported exclusively last December, that the regime plotted to assassinate two of Iran International’s TV anchors in London.

Iranian spies offered a people-smuggler $200,000 to assassinate Fardad Farahzad and Sima Sabet – codenamed “the bride and the groom” – outside their London studio.

The plot, which was foiled by a double-agent, was meant to show critics of the regime they “could do harm to them at any time”.

In December, a UK court convicted Chechen national Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev of gathering information on Iran International's London headquarters for a potential terror attack.

Prior to that, in November 2022, Volant Media, the parent company of Iran International, stated that two of its journalists had been informed by the Metropolitan Police of direct threats, posing an imminent, credible, and significant risk to their lives and those of their families. The network decided to move its broadcast operation to Washington DC temporarily in early 2023. Broadcasting was resumed from London last September.

Iran's Islamic regime has conducted hundreds of attacks against dissidents and journalists outside the country over the past 45 years.