Iran International
Iran’s minister of intelligence Esmail Khatib said Sunday that secret services are holding “spies from Sweden, France and Britain,” referring to some Western hostages.
Without providing names or details about the detainees, the intelligence minister even claimed that despite foreign pressures some of the “spies have been executed.”
Iran executed Iranian-Swedish political activist and former leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) Habib Chaab (Asyud) in May.
In January, Iran executed British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari, after sentencing the former Iranian deputy defense minister to death on charges of spying for Britain.
Khatib, who is a hardliner cleric, was addressing the 24th assembly of senior Revolutionary Guard officers in Tehran, where he praised Iran’s multiple intelligence services for working together to thwart “enemy conspiracies” and domestic threats.
Khatib reiterated the regime’s ideological precept that “the enemy” continues to plot against the Islamic Republic, which has become a “global power.” He claimed that “50 intelligence services” around the world have set up “Iran desks” to be able to confront “a new global power.”
The term “enemy” is a favorite word used by Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei to refer to the United States, Israel and their allies and partners, but Khatib did not elaborate about who these 50 adversaries around the world are.
Although Iran has released several European high-profile hostages this year, including French and Belgian prisoners held on spying charges, it is not clear how many more are left behind.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who spoke in May after the release of two French hostages, said more work is needed “because there are, unfortunately, too many who are detained without reason in Iran.” Apparently, four French citizens and numerous other Europeans remain incarcerated in Iran.
While intelligence minister Khatib boasted about holding European “spies” he did not mention the five American hostages who were released into house arrest earlier this month after a deal with the Biden administration to unblock $6 billion of Iran’s money in South Korea.
The deal has triggered a lot of criticism in the United States, where politicians and some analysts have voiced fear that essentially paying $1.2 billion per hostage will embolden the Islamic Republic and other adversaries to take Americans hostage. Iranian hardliners certainly see the deal as ransom payment by the United States.
A firebrand senior ayatollah, Ahmad Alamolhoda on Friday called the release of Iran’s frozen funds by the US “a humiliation” and a “ransom” in exchange for “their spies.” The cleric is close to Khamenei and is the father-in-law of President Ebrahim Raisi.
Khatib also reiterated that “the enemy’s” aim is to destabilize Iran and reduce participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections in March. The regime has blamed anti-government protests on US and Israeli plots, while it killed more than 500 civilians, injured thousands and has arrested around 22,000 since last September.
Regime politicians and many analysts in Iran believe that voter turnout will be low in March, simply because hardliners prevented other regime loyalists to run both in the 2020 parliamentary and in the 2021 presidential elections. People see no real choice and are deeply angered by the current economic and political crises. They do not believe that Khamenei will change his Anti-West foreign policy and sanctions will continue to increase hardships they face.
They have almost been in total control of the presidential administration since 2021, while also holding the majority of seats in the parliament (Majles) following the controversial elections of 2020, when no moderate or reformist regime loyalists were allowed to run.
The ultraconservatives' near-monopoly of power is already strong enough so that traditional conservatives such as the elderly members of the Islamic Coalition Party find it hard to consider themselves as players in the upcoming parliamentary election in March.
In a report this week, Khabar Online website described the pre-election ultraconservatives move of the hardliners as "the radicals' onslaught against the conservative camp," and wrote that it is part of a political purification process taking place. The term purification was coined by moderate conservative politician Ali Larijani to describe the ultraconservative's attempt to create their monopoly of power in Iran.
While different conservative factions are fighting over the pie, most politicians and analysts expect a very low voter turnout in March. People are disillusioned with all politicians of the Islamic Republic amid a serious economic crisis and the brutal crackdown during recent protests.
Khabar Online explained the political scene ahead of the elections as a confrontation between the ultraconservatives on the one hand and other factions in the conservative camp. Larijani, a traditional conservative who has always been loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been the victim of the purification process.
The main battle, according to Khabar Online, will take place between the members of the ultraconservative Paydari Party and the neo-cons around Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The former, wishes to turn the Iranian government into a totalitarian religious regime and the latter advocates the idea of a military dictatorship.
Paydari, as the advocate of a religious state based on the ideas of late Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi wishes a political brand of Shiite Islam to rule in Iran. The regime they have in mind does not get its legitimacy from the people. Mesbah Yazdi had said openly that the people and their votes should have no part in running the affairs of the state. He argued that democracy was created for the West. In his ideology the true ruler of the country is God who directly appoints the supreme leader as his representative on earth.
According to Khabar Online, the Paydari Party's plan is to hold all the three branches of the government as well as all other institutions in the country in its hands based on a 10-year project.
The neo-cons, on the other hand, are a group of technocrats with a background in the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) or the academia, like Ghalibaf himself who has both academic and military credentials. They follow the idea of a "New Governance" the outlines of which have never been laid out at least publicly. They are the left wing of "other conservatives" as opposed to their right wing where seasoned politicians such as Larijani and Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri are active as potential kingmakers in the next election.
Traditional conservatives, who are mainly the members of the Islamic Coalition Party, which played a major role in the 1979 Islamic revolution, struggle to find their place in the competitions to win at least half a dozen seats in the Majles. Their Leader, Assadollah Badamchian, said in an interview with Rouydad24 website that "The upcoming election is going to be eventful as there are multiple conservative parties involved in the competition."
It is interesting that neither Paydar members, nor Ghalibaf's camp or Badamchian talk about moderates and reformists as contestants. It seems they are certain to be the only runners.
Mohsen Rafighdoost was in charge of the Revolutionary Guard's Logistics when he says he was told that a group of students were going to storm the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979, some 10 months after the Islamic revolution that ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Rafighdoost told Didban Iran website in Tehran Thursday that the IRGC had a part in "organizing the attack on the US Embassy,” and added, "Along with Mohsen Rezaei, who was in charge of the IRGC's Intelligence Unit, I went to a briefing session. Mohsen Mirdamadi, [one of the student leaders] and Hassan Lahouti who was in charge of the Islamic Revolution Committees [a militia organization that did the job of the police, which was disbanded after the revolution] were also present at the meeting."
The statement made by Rafighdoost effectively refuted the claim that the attack on the embassy was a revolutionary attempt by students with no link to the government. Rafighdoost's next comment is truly incriminating: "I was told at the meeting that I was required to help the takeover of the embassy. Subsequently I put some facilities at the students' disposal."
This reveals that the IRGC was involved in planning, organizing and providing the logistics for the attack on the embassy. The students stormed the embassy and took 54 US diplomats hostage for 444 days, demanding, among other things, that the Shah of Iran who was being treated for terminal cancer in the United States be handed over to the revolutionary government in Tehran for a trial that would have most certainly led to his execution, judging by how the new regime treated the Shah's generals, ministers and many others.
Rafighdoost, who was a pedlar at the Tehran fruit market before the revolution, was the man who drove Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini from the Tehran airport to Behesht-e Zahra cemetery where he gave his famous speech during which he promised that free transportation, electricity, water and gas would be provided to the nation. A promise that was never kept.
His reward for the service was the job at the IRGC, which he kept for two years, before he was appointed as the Minister of IRGC [1982-1988] without any education and military background. He was equally unqualified when he later became the head of Mostazafan Foundation [Foundation for the oppressed], which had just confiscated billions of dollars of the nation's wealth without any checks and balances. He is now back to the bazaar once again, albeit as a tycoon. However, he maintains his position as one of the trustees of the foundation.
As regards others at the meeting, Mohsen Rezaei was appointed the commander in chief of the IRGC, again with minimal educational background and absolutely no military training. Mohsen Mirdamadi later became a lawmaker and a deputy speaker of the parliament who is currently alienated from the government for leading a mutiny at the parliament in the 2004 against Khamenei’s despotic rule. Lahouti, a cleric who had spent most of his life in jail under the Shah, was killed in prison according to his family members, but the government claims that he committed suicide after he was arrested and jailed for his son's membership at the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization.
During the time the students held US diplomats hostage, they published a series of often fabricated documents to tarnish the image of Khomeini’s critics and political rivals. Iran’s current ruler Ali Khamenei has repeatedly called for including the contents of those "documents" in school textbooks. When Iran finally released the hostages in January 1981, the hostage-takers were given important posts at the Foreign Ministry [Hossein Sheikholeslam], the Police [Police Chief Reza Saifollahi] and other government ministries. Dozens of them became lawmakers (2000-2004) under the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami.