Iran International
The Islamic Republic enlists foreign students, training them as ideological emissaries for deployment in other nations, according to an audio file leaked on Sunday.
The speaker, purported to be Hamidreza Haddadpour, head of the International Affairs Center for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s university representatives network, reveals that recruiting foreign students establishes an ideological foothold for the Islamic Republic in the region and beyond, citing past success.
The speaker notes that many of these students are the offspring of “influential individuals in their countries who may inherit their fathers' positions.”
In the same speech, Haddadpour discloses that several meetings at Khamenei’s office led to the decision, under Khamenei's directive, to hire international students on a contractual basis. Notably, the job title "cultural secretaries" was deliberately chosen to avoid causing sensitivities in their respective countries, steering clear of titles like propagandist or teacher.
He also says Ghasem Soleimani, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ extraterritorial arm, the Qods (Quds) Force, had been adamant that the Islamic Republic should pay serious attention to the role international students in advancing the Islamic Republic's cause in other nations. Soleimani had actively advocated for the government to address obstacles hindering the involvement of international students and had written letters to that effect.
The audio file was part of a collection of classified documents released by a hacker group called Ghiyam ta Sarnegouni (Uprising till Overthrow), affiliated with the People's Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MEK). They published these documents on their Telegram account on Sunday.
Ghiyam ta Sarnegouni has on several previous occasions released classified documents which it claims were acquired by gaining control over hundreds of websites and servers of various government and state organizations such as the Ministry of Science in September. In a Telegram post a few hours after releasing the audio file and other documents, the hacker group said it still had control over the website of Khamenei representatives’ network in universities (nahad.ir).
Iran's Health Minister Bahram Eynollahi emphasized the significance of providing education to foreign students, stating that the Islamic Republic could "export the Islamic Revolution" through them. "Foreign students trained in Iran have become effective propagandists for the Islamic Republic in their countries,” he told a meeting of the government ministers in the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution in September 2021.
The Islamic Republic provides ample study opportunities at its numerous seminaries and Al-Mustafa International University in Qom, a state-funded Shiite seminary functioning like a university under Khamenei's control.
Al-Mustafa University, with branches in over fifty countries, sponsors hundreds of foreign students annually, from China to Africa and Latin America, enabling them to study in Iran. The intention is for these students to return to their respective countries and promote Iran’s version of Shiism.
In 2020, the university received a budget of nearly 5 trillion rials, approximately $100 million based on the official exchange rate at that time. This amount surpasses the budget of any other university in Iran.
The United States Treasury imposed sanctions on Al-Mustafa University in December 2020 for its alleged involvement in recruiting Afghan and Pakistani students to fight in Syria. Canada also imposed sanctions on Al-Mustafa University for recruiting foreign fighters in October 2022.
In early September, the Islamic Republic agreed to provide tuition to members of Iraq's Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi militias at Tehran University. The decision was made during a meeting attended by the head of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representatives' network in universities and the education deputy of Hashd al-Shaabi, as announced by the university's public relations office.
Mohsen Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guard commander and a power insider in Tehran, threatened on Sunday that “New fronts will be opened in the Gaza war, and if the situation in remains grave, it would be impossible to prevent reactions by Muslim youth.”
Rezaei, who was speaking to Iran-affiliated Al Mayadeen television, hinted at other groups of the “Resistance Front” getting involved in the war and insisted that Israel will be defeated. Other Iranian officials have made similar claims since Israel launched its attacks on Gaza after Hamas’ October 7 terror attack. However, so far, the Iranian regime has not used its own military forces to respond to Israel.
Khamenei appealed to Muslim states with political ties with Israel on Sunday to at least cut them for "a limited time", state media reported on Sunday, weeks after he called for an Islamic oil and food embargo on Israel.
"Some Islamic governments have condemned Israeli crimes in assemblies while some have not. This is unacceptable," Khamenei said before reiterating that the main task of Islamic governments should be to cut off Israel from energy and goods.
"Islamic governments should at least cut off political ties to Israel for a limited time," Khamenei added.
This was a substantial climb-down for a man who has made Israel’s destruction the main ideological linchpin of his 34-year rule. The fact that Iran’s most powerful proxy military group, the Lebanese Hezbollah, has refrained from starting an all-out war against Israel, as Hamas faces a dire situation in Gaza, is another clear sign that Tehran is unwilling to risk everything at this stage.
In the meantime, Iran’s rulers have succeeded in securing the release of as much as $17 billion dollars that was blocked in South Korea and Iraq because of US sanctions. The Biden administration began approving the release of the funds from June, despite domestic opposition, and approved another big chunk this month, as the war raged in Gaza. The most astonishing aspect of Washington’s decision is that it came amid almost daily attacks by Iranian proxy militias on US military bases in Iraq and Syria.
It is not clear if this concession by the Biden administration is what keeps Tehran hesitant to expand the conflict, or it simply feels unease given its precarious situation at home. Since the United States imposed sanction in 2018, Iran faces an intractable economic crisis, which in turn has led to public anger and rounds of protests. The Islamic Republic faces political instability, with the ever-present specter of more popular protests.
After decades of calling for Israel’s destruction, the Islamic Republic seems to have shied away from military assistance to Hamas and is calling for a ceasefire. On Monday, President Ebrahim Raisi wrote to leaders of 50 countries asking them to use their influence to end the fighting. These included, the leaders of China, Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Kenya and Jordan. Once again Raisi asked these countries to impose economic sanctions on Israel.
However, during a joint summit between members of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League in Saudi Arabia's capital on Nov. 11, Muslim states did not agree to impose wide-ranging sanctions on Israel, and Raisi had to put his name to a joint statement that actually endorsed a two-state solution – or Israel’s right to exist.
Iran-backed militias have been targeting American forces almost daily for over a month, totalling 61 attacks in which at least 59 staff have been wounded. They say their operations are in support of Palestinians and will continue as long as the United States backs the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
In response, the Biden administration has so far approved three airstrikes on IRGC-affiliated facilities in Syria, the last of which on 12 November killed “seven militants”, according to US officials.
“Are we trying to deter future Iranian attacks like this,” a Pentagon official told the Washington Post on the condition of anonymity. “There’s no clear definition of what we are trying to deter.”
As Iran uses the war in Gaza to fuel its proxies' actions against its archenemies Israel and the US, regime rhetoric is relishing the opportunity posed by the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7. Thousands of terrorists invaded Israel killing at least 1,200 mostly civilians in the single most deadly day for Jews since the Holocaust. While Iran denies involvement, it funds the group tens of millions each year and supports it militarily.
“We have seen the first stage of expansion of the scope of the war by the resistance groups who make their own decisions,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian Monday, distancing himself from the proxy attacks on Israel and the US which have come from Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
“And if the possible scenarios to stop the crimes of the Zionists do not come to fruition, we will probably witness a new situation in the region,” he warned. On Sunday, Iran's Yemeni proxy, the Houthis, admitted hijacking what it had believed to be an Israeli-owned ship while on Monday, the situation on Israel's northern border had escalated under its proxy Hezbollah.
The Biden administration is mindful of not escalating the conflict and turning it into a full-scale regional war that would inexorably drag in American troops. They have warned Iran and its proxies many times that the United States will not tolerate attacks on its forces and would retaliate. Warships and troops have also been brought to the region to deter further aggression, yet the attacks are continuing unabated.
However, if the attacks on US bases carry on at the current rate, it is only a matter of time before US military personnel get killed, forcing the administration to react.
Some in Washington say Biden's softly-softly approach has emboldened the regime, not least since the recent hostage deal which saw five unlawfully detained US-Iranians released in exchange for the freeing up of $6bn of frozen Iranian funds in south Korea and a possible $10bn more in the offing.
Many attacks on US troops are carried out by one-way drones, which Iran manufactures on a large scale, even giving them to Russia to be used in its war against Ukraine.
“They keep shooting, waiting for us to respond. We don’t, so they keep shooting,” said Senator Kevin Cramer of the Armed Services Committee. “Our posture has to be a little more aggressive than just strictly defensive, because one of these days, we’re going to miss one of those drones.”