NCRI-US Welcomes IRGC Designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

Washington, DC- Ms. Soona Samsami, the representative in Washington for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI-US), welcomed the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the Secretary of State, which took effect today.

“The IRGC is not just a terror machine. It controls the lion’s share of the Iranian economy. It controls many economic conglomerates, from oil, gas and petrochemicals, to pharmaceutical, food, and farm products to banking, investment, the auto, airline, aerospace, and shipping industries, ports, highway and railway construction, and much more,” said Samsami, adding, “All such entities must be identified and blacklisted.”

NCRI’s U.S. representative emphasized that with the IRGC now designated, it is time to focus on classify the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) as an FTO. “Just in 2018, five Iranian regime diplomats, including an Ambassador were expelled by France, The Netherlands, and Albania, all on terrorism charges, one diplomat is in jail for delivering the deadly explosives in a failed terror plot in Paris, and a dozen other MOIS agents have been detained in Europe and the United States,” Samsami recalled.

The MOIS and the IRGC actively work together in hatching terror plots and assassinations outside Iran.

Since 1981, the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its main component, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), have repeatedly underscored the role of the IRGC in domestic repression, warmongering, terrorism and hostage-taking abroad.

In a series of books, publications, as well as press conferences and panels, NCRI-US has detailed the Rise of the Revolutionary Guards Financial Empire and, how with the blessing of the regime’s Supreme Leader, it managed to gradually gain control of a large segment of the Iranian economy, using the revenues and the profits to fund its terrorist operations in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and beyond.

NCRI-US also revealed the existence of 15 terrorist training camps in Iran, where the IRGC and Quds Force offer ideological, military, explosive and asymmetrical warfare training to foreign recruits. It has also laid bare the decision-making process within the regime regarding the planning and executing terror operations and assassinations carried out by the MOIS, using diplomatic cover and the services of Tehran’s embassies and diplomatic missions abroad.

Its other publications, NCRI-US dealt with IRGC’s ballistic missile program, its extensive involvement in Syria to prop up the criminal Bashar Assad regime, and its brutal crackdown at home to stifle dissent using shear repression as well as cyber espionage. NCRI also revealed extensive involvement of the IRGC in Tehran’s nuclear weapons program, including the groundbreaking revelation of the nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak, which triggered the IAEA inspections of the regime’s nuclear sites.

Terrified of the consequences and implications of IRGC’s FTO designation, the regime’s officials, from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to Hassan Rouhani and Javad Zarif, to IRGC commanders, and Friday prayer leaders, as well as the Speaker and members of the regime’s Majlis (Parliament), resorted to making a series of threats. The objective of this hollow show of force is to boost the morale of the Guards’ despondent and frightened officers and personnel as well as other regime’s adherents. In a ludicrous, made-for-television spectacle last week, parliament-deputies as well as TV presenters and reporters wore IRGC uniforms, making them subject of the public’s ridicule and laughter.

Samsami concluded, “with IRGC’s FTO designation now in effect, the next step is to implement the provisions the designation entails. As such, every effort must be made to prevent the Iranian regime from exporting any oil, whose revenues it uses to continue its brutal crackdown of dissent at home and foment instability, chaos, and terrorism in the region and beyond.”

How Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Financial Empire Funds Terrorism