Tracking the IRGC's aggression
Afghanistan
- The Pentagon has accused the Iranian regime of providing “ongoing” support to insurgents – and insurgent leaders Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ismail Khan in particular – through Quds forces, which are working with non-governmental organizations and political opposition. “Arms caches have been recently uncovered [in Afghanistan] with large amounts of Iranian-manufactured weapons, to include 107 millimetre rockets, which we assess IRGC-QF delivered to Afghan militants,” according to a 2010 Pentagon report.
- The U.S. State Department suspects Iran, through the IRGC-QF, of providing training and weapons—including “small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, and plastic explosives—to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Argentina
- On July 18, 1994, a suicide bomber exploded at the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) community centre in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding 300. Hezbollah and Iran are suspected.
- In 2007, Argentine prosecutors named several Iranian suspects in the AMIA bombing, including then Defence Minister Gen Ahmed Vahidi, who was the commander of a special unit of the IRGC at the time of the attack.
- In May 2013, an Argentine prosecutor releases a 500-page indictment in the AMIA bombing case, in which he accuses Iran of creating terrorist networks in Argentine and other Latin American countries to conduct terrorist attacks. He names Mohsen Rabbani, a former Iranian cultural attaché in Argentine, as a key leader directing the attack.
Austria
- On July 13, 1989, Iranian Kurdish dissident Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was shot to death along with Fadil Rasoul and Abdullah Ghaderi after being lured to a supposed negotiation with Iranian government officials. The three Iranians who committed the murders were arrested by Austrian authorities, but later released. Austrian police confirmed that at least one of the suspected killers was bearing an Iranian diplomatic passport. However, the suspected killers were allowed to leave Austria and return to Iran “after the Austrian government came under massive pressure from the Iranian government.” Iran’s Minister of Information and Security, Ali Fallahian, later boasted of the assassinations in a televised interview, saying: “we were able to deal vital blows to the cadres” of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Ghassemlou’s group.
Azerbaijan
- In January 2012, Azerbaijani authorities arrested at least two local men, linked to Iranian intelligence agencies, for plotting to attack the Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan and a local rabbi.
Bahrain
- The government of Bahrain has accused the Quds Force of providing explosives training to Bahraini militants opposed to the government. On December 29, 2013, the Bahraini Coast Guard intercepted a speedboat carrying weaponry and explosives meant for Shiite militants in Bahrain, particularly the 14 February Youth Coalition. Following the incident, authorities discovered weapons caches in Bahrain, dismantled a car bomb, and arrested 15 Bahraini nationals.
Germany
- Four Iranian Kurdish dissidents are assassinated at Mykonos, a Greek restaurant in Berlin. In 1997, a German court issued an international arrest warrant for Iranian Intelligence Minister Hojjat al-Islam Ali Fallahian, after determining that he had ordered the assassination with the knowledge of Supreme Leader Ali Khameini. A report by Amnesty International noted that the Mykonos killings constituted part of a broader pattern of murder of Iranian political dissidents, with reports of state-directed assassinations both inside Iran and in neighbouring Turkey.
Iran
- The IRGC has been accused of numerous violent acts against the Iranian population, particularly during the 2009 protests against Ahmadinejad’s re-election. The Basij paramilitary organization is accused of brutally suppressing protests after the June 2009 election.
- According to Human Rights Watch, hundreds of protesters were arrested after the June 12, 2009, elections and the Basij militia attacked student dormitories, beating the students and ransacking their rooms. Human Rights Watch also reported members of the Basij militia appearing in large groups at mass demonstrations and attacking protesters. There were reports of Basij members armed with clubs and chains beating up anyone suspected of participating in the protests against the government.
Iraq
- Former U.S. President George W. Bush accused Iran, and the IRGC in particular, of providing roadside bombs to militants within Iraq in 2007.
- In 2007, Shiite militants, under the direction of the IRGC, kidnapped British computer expert Peter Moore and four security guards, who are held in Quds Force-run prisons. Moore was released in December 2009, but the four guards were killed.
- The U.S. Treasury Department added the Quds Force to its list of terrorist supporters after coalition forces captured a number of Iraqi militants with alleged ties to Hezbollah and the Quds Force.
- According to the Pentagon, Quds forces are supporting terrorists through Iranian embassies in Iraq. In 2010, the outgoing Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, and the new ambassador, Hassan Danafar, were identified as Quds Force members.
- The United States has also accused the Quds Force of providing Iraqi militants with armour-piercing explosives, homemade bombs, anti-aircraft weaponry, rockets, RPGs, and explosives.
- Eliminating the possibility that Quds Force operations in Iraq are undertaken by a handful of individuals acting under their own volition, the Pentagon has linked the Quds Force’s actions in Iraq directly to the Iranian regime. “Although its operations sometimes appear at odds with the public voice of the Iranian regime, it is not a rogue outfit. It receives direction from the highest levels of the government and its leaders report directly, albeit informally, to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.”
- In 2008, General Hossein Hamedani, deputy commander of a volunteer militia in the IRGC, told an Iranian news agency that the IRGC is providing weapons to “liberation armies” in the Middle East, including in Lebanon and Iraq.
- On December 2, 2017, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said he had recently sent a letter to Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani that the United States would hold Iran accountable for any attacks by Iran-backed forces on U.S. interests in Iraq. Khamenei’s chief of staff, Mohammad Mohammadi Golpaygani, told the Associated Press that Soleimani had ignored the letter.
Israel
- After Hamas fired Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles at Israel in 2012, IRGC head Mohammad Ali Jafari admitted that Iran had shared the missile technology, along with other military assistance, with Hamas.
- On December 11, 2017, Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani declared in a phone call with Palestinian leaders in the Gaza Strip that Iran was prepared to support Palestinian groups in the coastal enclave against Israel. The IRGC’s website reported the call but did not identify to which groups Soleimani was speaking.
- On November 17, 2020, Unit 840 of the Quds Force allegedly planted anti-personnel mines in Israeli territory along the Syrian border. Israel’s military disarmed the mines. Unit 840 is a secretive unit within the Quds Force allegedly responsible for coordinating opposition to Western targets outside of Iran. Israel launched airstrikes against Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria in response. The Israeli military claimed to strike storage facilities, military compounds, and Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries.
Lebanon
- The IRGC provided Hezbollah with its initial financial support and training when the group emerged in the early 1980s.
- The Quds Force is Iran’s primary instrument for passing on support to Hezbollah, some of which is in the form of cash, while the rest is in weaponry. The U.S. Department of Defence estimated in 2010 that Iran provides Hezbollah with $100 million to $200 million annually.
Mexico
- Iran’s Quds Force is suspected of paying the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas to carry out a failed 2011 attempt to blow up the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Argentina.
- As part of the 2011 plot, the Quds Force also attempted to negotiate a deal with Los Zetas to smuggle opium from the Middle East to Mexico.
Saudi Arabia
- A truck bomb exploded on June 25, 1996, at a dormitory complex at Saudi Arabia’s Khobar Towers, housing U.S. Air Force pilots and staff, killing 19 Americans and wounding 372 other people. A U.S. federal grand jury in 2001 indicted the leader of Saudi Arabia Hezbollah and 13 other members for the 1996 Khobar Towers attack, and charged “elements of the Iranian government inspired, supported, and supervised members of the Saudi Hezbollah. In particular, the indictment alleged that the charged defendants reported their surveillance activities to Iranian officials and were supported and directed in those activities by Iranian officials. This indictment did not name as defendants individual members of the Iranian government.”
- Six Hezbollah members captured after the attacks implicated Iranian officials. After “overwhelming” evidence presented by experts on Hezbollah, U.S. Federal Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled in December 2006 that Iran was responsible for the Khobar Towers bombing, and ordered the Iranian government to pay $254 million to the families of 17 Americans victims. Lamberth pointed to evidence that the Iranian military worked with Saudi Hezbollah members to carry out the attack, and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security provided money, plans, and maps to help carry out the bombing.
Syria
- Syria is Iran’s main supply route to Hezbollah in Lebanon and thus a strategic asset. As such, the Iranian government has an interest in keeping besieged Syrian President Bashar Assad in power.
- Before the Syrian civil war, between 2,000 and 3,000 IRGC officers were stationed in Syria, helping to train local troops and managing supply routes of arms and money to neighbouring Lebanon.
- By Iran’s own admission, members of the Quds Force are acting in an advisory capacity to Syrian government forces in that country’s civil war, and Iran has committed itself to providing arms, financing, and training to Iraqi Shiite fighters in the war. A retired senior IRGC commander claims there are at least 60 to 70 Quds Force commanders in Syria at any given time.
- In April 2011, the United States and the European Union accused the Quds Force of providing equipment and support to help the Syrian regime suppress revolts.
- In 2013, two senior Quds Force commanders were killed in fighting in Syria. According to Iranian media, Commander Mohammad Jamalizadeh Paghaleh, killed in November 2013 in Aleppo, was volunteering to defend Sayyida Zainab mosque in Damascus, more than 200 miles away from Aleppo.
Turkey
- In February 1996, two Iranians thought to be members of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran were assassinated in Turkey. An Iranian citizen, Reza Massoumi, was convicted of the killings. At his trial, he stated that he had acted on orders from the Iranian government.
- In the aftermath of the 2009 election crisis in Iran, Iranian refugees in Turkey began to report facing monitoring and harassment from Iranian government agents inside Turkey.
United States
- According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Mansour Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen holding both Iranian and U.S. passports, acted on behalf of the Quds Force to plan a failed assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C., in 2011. The Treasury named Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani; senior Quds Force officer Hamed Abdollahi, who coordinated aspects of the plot and oversaw the other Quds Force officials directly responsible for coordinating and planning this operation; Abdul Reza Shahlai, a Quds Force official who coordinated the operation; and Ali Gholam Shakuri, a Quds Force official who met with Arbabsiar to discuss the assassination and other planned attacks.
- Abdul Reza Shahlai, a Quds Force official who coordinated the failed assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador, had previously been linked to the killing of U.S. forces in Iraq, according to Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, USMC (retired).
- A 2012 New York Police Department intelligence report linked the IRGC or its proxies to nine foiled international plots against Jewish or Israeli targets.
Yemen
- The IRGC has provided financial aid and material support to Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Iranian ship Jihan I was seized allegedly en route to Yemen in 2013 with arms meant for the Houthis, including “Katyusha rockets M-122, heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles, RPG-7s, Iranian-made night vision goggles and ‘artillery systems that track land and navy targets 40km away.’”
- In September 2014, IRGC-aided Houthi rebels took over Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa. That December, an Iranian official confirmed that the IRGC Quds Force has “a few hundred” military personnel in Yemen training Houthi rebels.
- In early 2015, U.S. officials reported that the IRGC had trained Houthi rebels in the use of advanced weapons.
- In 2016, the IRGC has been suspected of providing Houthi rebels with long-range missiles they have used against Saudi Arabia. Iranian media have praised the Houthis’ use of the Iranian Zelzal-3 rocket. Iran reportedly increased its supply of weapons to the Houthis in late 2016.