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Policy Instrument
If for every Palestinian martyred by Israeli mercenaries, five American or French citizens are murdered, they would no longer commit such crimes. . . The Palestinians might say, In that case the world will call us terrorists. I say, however, do they not label you already?
-Hashemi-Rafsanjani, May 6,19891
Terrorism has been one of the primary tools of the mullahs' regime to spread fundamentalism and expand Iran's influence.
Most of the images that have come to symbolize terrorism over the past decade are tied closely to the Tehran regime's mercenaries: The 1986 street bombings in Paris, the corpse of an "executed" passenger thrown from a hijacked Kuwaiti plane in Cyprus, and the grim videotaped faces of hostages appealing to their governments*
Although not new to the past decade, terrorism has acquired qualitative1y different dimensions since Khomeini and his Islamic fundamentalist government came to power in 1979. Indeed, today, Khomeini and his heirs can be considered the godfathers of terrorism.
1. State-sponsored terrorism. Because terrorism has been one of the main instruments to advance the mullahs' foreign policy, decisions about terrorist operations have always been made at the highest levels of the regime. Before he died, all decisions were made by Khomeini, who enjoyed the active advice of Khamenei, Rafsanjani, and other leaders.
In his letter of resignation to Khamenei in September 1988, Prime Minister Mir, Hussein Moussavi unequivocally stated that many terrorist activities were planned and carried out at the order of the highest echelons of the government and without his knowledge.2 After surrendering to the French Police, a Tunisian national by the name of Lutfi, one of the Iranian regime's terrorist operatives in France, revealed that the 1986 bombings in France had been suggested to Khomeini by Ali Khamenei, the president at the time; Hashemi-Rafsanjani, then the majlis speaker; Mohsen Rafiqdoust, the head of the Foundation of the Deprived (at the time the minister of the Revolutionary Guards Corps); and Muhammad Muhammadi-Rayshahri, the then intelligence minister.3 The bombings of shops and a cafe killed twelve people and wounded scores more.
When Khomeini was alive, Rafsanjani acted as the coordinator of the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Islamic Culture and Guidance, and the Guards Corps' units involved in terrorist activities. After Khomeini's death, Rafsanjani, as the country's president and the chair-man of the Supreme National Security Council, has continued to make the final decisions on terrorist plans.
During the mullahs' fourteen-year rule, unlimited financial resources have been devoted to exporting terrorism. Tehran has also formed specific terrorist organs and institutions, and-as noted in Chapter IX the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has played a key role in sponsoring terrorist activities.4
2. Religious fanaticism. The Tehran mullahs also exploit religion to legitimize acts of terror by calling them divine duties. The mullahs promise the perpetrators of such actions "a place in heaven." This religious factor generates intense hatred and catastrophic results. Some of the most devastating blows have been delivered through suicide missions. Shedding the blood of innocent people and ordinary citizens is easily justified as "a necessary price." In many cases, public places have been bombed at random - victimizing civilians and even children merely to create fear. The fundamentalists' targets are determined by Tehran's political and propaganda interests.
3. Handpicked targets. The Iranian-sponsored terrorism has targeted a wide spectrum of victims during the past decade.
4. Hostage taking. The 444-day occupation of the United States Embassy in Tehran, beginning on November 4, 1979, marked the start of the newly established clerical regime's experimentation with terrorism and provided a glimpse of what was yet to come.
In 1986, when the departure of an Iranian cargo ship from an Italian port was delayed for a few days because an Iranian sailor had requested political asylum, Tehran retaliated by preventing Italian nationals, including diplomats, from leaving Iran. Rafsanjani had this to say about the incident: "They delayed our ship. We spoke with them with humane language. It was to no avail. Yesterday we ordered several Italians not to leave Iran. [The authorities] returned them from the airport."5
In March 1992, when relations between Berne and Tehran soured over the arrest of a top Iranian terrorist in Switzerland, a Swiss business-man disappeared in Tehran without any trace. Several days later, it became clear that the Swiss national had been taken hostage.
The tragic saga of the Western hostages held captive by Tehran's proxies in Lebanon was the very essence of Iranian-sponsored terrorism. In the words of Rafsanjani, "If the oppressed people of Lebanon do not take hostages, then what else can they do?"6 Rafsanjani tried to delay the hostages' release to gain the maximum concessions. Sheikh Muhammad, Hussein Fadhlullah, a Hizbullah leader, acknowledged in March 1991 that holding the Western hostages had become a liability: "If it were left to us, we would release them this very day. But Rafsanjani believes that the Americans are not yet ready to step forward and accept Iran's demands."7 Consequently, Tehran agreed to the freedom of the Western hostages only when the region's political landscape had been totally reshaped in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
5. Hijacking. Another method often employed by the mullahs' regime in recent years has been the hijacking of passenger airliners. In August 1983, an Air France Boeing 737 was commandeered as it left Vienna and forced to go to Tehran. Its cockpit was blown up on the tarmac of Mehrabad Airport by the hijackers. In June 1985, a TWA Boeing 727 was hijacked while en route to Rome from Athens. An American navy diver was murdered while the plane was parked on the tarmac of Beirut Airport. An Air Afrique DC-1O airliner was hijacked in July 1987 by Iranian-backed terrorists who killed a French passenger at the Geneva Airport. The Swiss president revealed in an interview at the time that the government of Iran was responsible for the affair. On April 5, 1988, a Kuwaiti airliner 747 jumbo jet was hijacked in Bangkok and forced to land in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashad. A leading Lebanese terrorist boarded the plane to control the operation. After fifteen days, the episode ended in Algiers, but not before two passengers were murdered by the terrorists.
6. Bombings in public places. In September 1986 a wave of bombings shook Paris. Fuad Ali Saleh, accused of killing twelve people and injuring hundreds in these incidents, was arrested while carrying explosives into a car in Paris in March 1987. A student of theology in Qom, Saleh confessed that he had been commissioned by Tehran. Bomb blasts in two beach-side restaurants in Kuwait City in 1985 left ten people dead and eighty wounded. During the 1989 hajj in Mecca, three bombs went off around the Grand Mosque, injuring scores of pilgrims. Terrorist agents who claimed responsibility for the explosions were captured and stated in their confessions several months later that they had been trained by the Iranian regime. In August 1986, a number of Iranian diplomat' terrorists were arrested in Jiddah Airport carrying large quantities of explosives.8
7. Suicide missions, car and truck bombs. In April 1983, a bomb, laden truck exploded in front of the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 61 and wounding 120 persons. The Emir of Kuwait was wounded in a suicide attack on his motorcade in May 1985 that was linked to Iran. Car bombs were used to assassinate Saudi diplomats in Turkey and Thailand. In March 1992, a powerful bomb exploded in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, destroying the Israeli Embassy9. Two months later, a senior official at the U.S. State Department said, "The United States has uncovered strong indications that Iranian diplomats helped plan the March 17 bombing."10 According to these reports, several other foreign embassies in Latin American countries had been identified for similar terrorist attacks.
Rafsanjani and other senior Iranian officials have repeatedly and officially accepted the responsibility for terrorist actions by their operatives in Lebanon and elsewhere. Three years after the explosion of the U.S. Marine barracks near Beirut, Rafsanjani said, "They hold us accountable for the blow the Americans received and the humiliation they suffered in Lebanon. We are indeed responsible [for it.]"11 Brigadier General Mohsen Rafiqdoust, the former Guards Corps minister and Rafsanjani's brother-in-law, stated, "Both the TNT and the ideology which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marine Headquarters had been provided by Iran."12
8. Assassinations of foreign nationals and Iranian oppositionists. The most publicized example of the mullahs' terrorism against foreign nationals was Khomeini's decree in 1989 ordering the execution of the Indian-born British author, Salman Rushdie. Despite a wave of international condemnation and appeals to annul the decree, Rafsanjani and other high-ranking officials have stressed its irrevocability. In reply to a question on the subject, Rafsanjani said:
The fact that the entire power of the Arrogant West is defeated in relation to a blasphemous book provides a clear path to materialize the Imam's [Khomeini's] thoughts. The Imam's decree on the execution of Salman Rushdie is the decree of Islam; it remains in force and will be subject to no changes.13
In November 1992, mullah Hassan Sane'i, a top cleric and the head of the state-run Panzdah Khordad Foundation, issued a statement, confirming an increase in the $ 2 million reward for killing Salman Rushdie.14 In a January 31, 1993, press conference in Tehran, Rafsanjani told foreign journalists, "Nothing can change this [the verdict] because, the leader [Khomeini] is dead..."15 The following month, Khamenei added, "The Imam [Khomeini] fired an arrow toward this brazen apostate. The arrow has left the bow and is moving toward its target and will sooner or later strike it. This sentence must definitely be carried out and it will be carried out."16
In addition, the mullahs' terrorists have so far set several libraries and bookstores on fire for carrying Rushdie's book. They also wounded the Italian translator of the book and murdered its Japanese translator.
In March 1990, a famous Turkish journalist working for the daily Hurriyet and his driver were shot and killed in Istanbul.17 According to Hurriyet, the police concluded that the murderers had received their orders from Iran. An Iranian diplomat named Aqiqi, who is also a member of the Intelligence Ministry, was involved in the murder. He is now working at the Iranian Embassy in Vienna. On January 15, 1992, Mustapha Geha, a Shi'ite Lebanese author who had written anti-Khomeini commentaries in Beirut's newspapers, was murdered in the Sabtiyeh district of Beirut.18
On January 24,1993, Ugur Mumcu, a renowned Turkish journalist, was killed as a powerful bomb exploded in the car he was driving in Istanbul. He was a staunch critic of the mullahs' fundamentalism. In a related development, a prominent Turkish industrialist escaped assassination on January 27, when his bodyguards exchanged gunfire with four armed men who stopped his car as he was driving to work.19
The clearest evidence of the terrorist nature of the mullahs' regime, however, is its extensive and vigorous campaign to assassinate its Iranian opponents abroad. A glance at the list of such victims indicates that during Rafsanjani's first four years as president, and despite his "moderate" reputation, the number of Iranian dissidents murdered by Tehran's terrorist squads exceeded the number of those assassinated during Khomeini's rule. (See Appendix)
The most notable of these assassinations was the murder of Professor Kazem Rajavi, the elder brother of the Iranian Resistance's leader, Massoud Rajavi. Ordered by Rafsanjani, it required enormous resources, extensive planning, and coordination among several of the regime's organizations. On April 24, 1990, a terrorist squad killed Rajavi, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran to the United Nations and Switzerland, near his home in a Geneva suburb. Because of his international endeavors to defend human rights in Iran, Rajavi was a distinguished personality. Sirous Nasseri, Tehran's ambassador to the United Nations Office in Geneva, on two occasions personally threatened to murder him. After extensive investigations, Roland Chatelain, the Swiss magistrate in charge of the case, and Swiss judicial and police officials confirmed the role of Rafsanjani's government and the participation of thirteen official agents of the Iranian regime who had used "service passports" to enter Switzerland for their plot.20
On July 13, 1989, Abdul-Rahman Qassemlou, the secretary general of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan; Abdullah Qaderi, a member of the Party's Central Committee; and a Kurdish middleman were gunned down by a team from the Revolutionary Guards Corps who were negotiating with them in Vienna on behalf of the mullahs' regime. The person commanding the attack was Muhammad-Ja'far Sahraroudi, chief of the Intelligence Directorate of the Guard Corps Qods Force.21 Police arrested Sahraroudi, who had gone to Austria under the assumed name of Rahimi, but released him quickly, enabling him to return to Iran at once. On August 6, 1991, Shapour Bakhtiar, the shah's last prime minister, and his personal secretary, Soroush Katibeh, were stabbed to death in Paris by the mullahs' terrorists.
On September 17, 1992, Farsi-speaking gunmen charged into a Greek restaurant in Berlin and murdered Sadegh Sharafkandi and two other Iranian Kurdish nationals.22 Sharafkandi had succeeded Abdul-Rahman Qassemlou, the leader of the Iranian Kurdish Democratic Party.
Prior to the killings in Berlin, Iranian agents stabbed to death Fereidoon Farrokhzad, an Iranian entertainer, at his home in Bonn in August 1992.23
An International Terrorist Network
To carry out bombings, hijackings, and assassinations, the Iranian clerics have established a vast network of agents and centers throughout the world.
In recent years, the mullahs' regime has turned Switzerland into one of its major terrorist centers in Europe. The regime's embassy in Berne and its consulate in Geneva coordinate, oversee, and direct Tehran's terrorist operations throughout Europe. Berne and Geneva also act as the command and logistic bases for terrorism in Cologne, Paris, Vienna, and other important European cities. The assassination of Kazem Rajavi in Switzerland; the attempt on the life of Kamal Rezaii, the Mojahedin spokesman in Germany, on May 28, 1990; the attempt to murder an Iranian Kurdish dissident on September 6, 1990, in Sweden; and assassinations of Iranian refugees in 1990 and 1991 in Paris were carried out under the supervision of Berne and Geneva.
From 1986 to early 1992 Muhammad-Hussein Mala'ek, Tehran's former ambassador to Switzerland and one of the students involved in occupying the American Embassy in Tehran, oversaw these operations.24 Later this task was given to Muhammad-Reza Alborzi, the new ambassador in Berne, and Sirous Nasseri in Geneva.
Another of the regime's diplomat-terrorists is Seyyed-e-Razi, who met in December 1991 with Hamid Naqashan to coordinate the terrorist plans in Zurich. Hamid Naqashan was the commander in chief of intelligence and operations of the Guards Corps' Liberation Movements Unit, which was incorporated into the Special Qods Force commanded by Ahmad Vahidi.
Tehran's terrorist contacts in Switzerland also played an important role in the August 1991 murder in Paris of Shapour Bakhtiar, carried out under the supervision of the Qods Force. Moussa Kowsari (passport name of Vakili-Rad), and Muhammad Azadi, commander of the hit squad, were members of the Qods Force. Vakili-Rad was arrested by the Swiss police and extradited to France, but Azadi succeeded in leaving Switzerland for Turkey on September 4, after Mala'ek gave him refuge on August 22, 1991, in the Iranian Embassy in Berne. Another key terrorist operative in Switzerland is Mustafa Sadeqi-Meibodi, stationed at the regime's consulate in Geneva. He directs all the Intelligence Ministry's affairs throughout Europe. Zein ol-Abedin Sarhaddi, who was arrested in Switzerland in 1992, is a special VEVAK agent who played an active role in coordinating and implementing Bakhtiar's murder.25 He also has valuable information on the details of Rajavi's assassination. In addition to an embassy and representative offices in Switzerland, the regime's terrorists have other facilities, such as a headquarters in the Gonche region of Geneva that is used for support and logistic purposes.
Germany is particularly important for the mullahs' terrorist efforts because of the high level of political and economic relations between the two countries. These provide Tehran with enormous freedom of action that has been exploited to establish numerous logistics, supply, and intelligence centers and bases in Germany.26 The presence of many Iranian opposition groups and large Muslim communities, mostly composed of immigrant Turks, has encouraged the Iranian regime to intensify its terrorist activities and to recruit agents from among the Muslims residing in Germany.
The Iranian Embassy in Bonn is a command center, and the Khaneh Behdasht-e-Iran in Cologne is another logistics headquarters for the regime's terrorist operations in Europe.27 The regime's top officials in Germany are chosen from among those who have previous background and experience in terrorist activities. Mehdi Ahari-Mostafavi, Tehran's former ambassador to Bonn, was one of the students who occupied the American Embassy in Tehran. He also shaped Iran's terrorist network in Austria. Hassan Khosrojerdi, director of the House of Iran, a cultural center, was involved in terrorism in Syria and Lebanon. Ahmad Kan'ani, who preceded Khosrojerdi in that post, was also the Guards Corps commander in Lebanon.
From 1981 to 1986, when the Iranian Resistance's leader, Massoud Rajavi, was headquartered in a Paris suburb, the Tehran regime devoted a vast terrorist network to attempting to assassinate him. On several occasions, plans were discovered. Iranian agents either escaped or were expelled from France.
As in Germany, the mullahs are seeking to recruit agents for terrorist purposes from among local Muslims, several million of whom reside in France, most from North Africa. One of the clerical regime's important recruitment centers is Ahl al-Beit al-Islamiah which is disguised as a cultural center.28 A 45-year-old Kuwaiti national by the name of Haj Ibrahim, who runs an Islamic library, is in charge of the Ahl al-Beit center, which publishes the Ahl al-Beit magazine to lure new members. During the Iran-Iraq War, France was the target of the mullahs' terrorism in return for what Tehran said was that country's support for Iraq.
On September 19, 1991, the French police arrested Massoud Hindizadeh, one of the regime's diplomats in Paris. Prior to his arrest, Hindizadeh was in charge of the Iranian radio and television operations in France. His terrorist background had been revealed by the People's Mojahedin. He was arrested along with eleven other terrorists. Hindizadeh subsequently confessed to the involvement of the leaders of the Iranian regime in several assassinations in Paris. On October 12, the French police arrested another regime agent working undercover as the head of Iran Air's cargo department at the Orly Airport. Following these arrests, the French Justice Ministry issued an international arrest warrant for Hussein Sheikh-Attar, the adviser to the Iranian minister of post, telegraph, and telephone. A Paris court on March 11, 1992, handed out five-year jail sentences to two Iranian intelligence agents convicted of illegally transporting arms. Nasser Daryaei and Mahmoud Sheyzari were tried in absentia after they fled Paris in February 1986.29
A neighbor of Iran to the northwest, Turkey has also been a hotbed of terrorism for the mullahs who want to blackmail Turkey and gain political and economic concessions.30 Members and supporters of the People's Mojahedin have been regular targets of Tehran's terrorists in Turkey. Istanbul is home to one of the mullahs' most active Intelligence Ministry centers outside Iran. There, Tehran's agents forge documents and passports and establish contacts with its terrorist squads before sending them on missions to Europe. The Intelligence Ministry's operational units move about in absolute secrecy and do not have any contacts with Tehran's embassies and official representative centers. Many of the terrorists use refugee passports to cover their traces.
Nariman Shah-Ibrahim has been one of the senior officers of the Intelligence Ministry in Turkey for several years. Before receiving the assignment for Turkey, he had the task of maintaining control over foreign guests at hotels, eavesdropping, photographing their documents, and searching rooms in their absence. In Turkey, he had a hand in the assassination of Colonel Hamid Farzaneh, an Iranian army officer, and the explosion of the Saudi Airline offices in Istanbul and in Karachi, Pakistan. Shah, Ibrahim has a refugee passport from Denmark under his real name. His contacts at the Intelligence Ministry in Tehran are Reza Nouri and Ali Saber. Two Intelligence Ministry agents working under his command are Hamid Farsi and Faramarz Farahani.
Tehran uses Cyprus to provide weapons and supplies to terrorists, and to establish contacts and gather information. Many meetings between terrorist teams in Europe and their Iranian supervisors are held there. Until the mid, 1980's, the mullahs' regime used a canned-food company in Spain - which has convenient access to France - to stockpile large quantities of weapons, including rocket launchers, machine guns, and grenades. These were to be used in a large-scale terrorist attack against Massoud Rajavi. With the discovery of the facilities in Spain, the Tehran regime transferred its weapons storage to Cyprus.
Because of its large Shi'ite population and its proximity to Israel, Lebanon has been one of the regime's prime targets for the export of fundamentalism and terrorism since the beginning of Khomeini's rule. In mid 1982, the Guards Corps' Muhammad Rasulullah brigade was dispatched to Lebanon. Two thousand Revolutionary Guards stayed in Lebanon when the brigade returned to Iran. In addition, the Guards Corps' organization was restructured to include a "Lebanon Corps," to provide manpower, training, and logistical support to the regime's forces in Lebanon. The Guards Corps based its forces in the city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, where a large enclave of Shi'ites live. Baalbek thus became the center where the Guards and the Khomeini regime's indigenous supporters were settled, trained, and subsequently dispatched on terrorist missions. The Guard Corps has many bases in the Bekaa Valley. The Sheikh Abdullah or Sakaneh Imam Ali base (also known as the Baalbek base) is the largest of these bases and plays a central role in such activities. The Guards Corps has also established many bases in townships around Baalbek to exert control over the area it holds. In 1992 senior Iranian government officials reportedly ordered their terrorist units in Lebanon to prepare for major operations all over the Middle East. They expanded command, control, and communications systems and sent personnel to sites in Sudan. According to one expert, "Sudan is an ideal position for launching attacks on Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia."31
Tehran has long used its embassy as well as Iranian schools and other facilities in Kuwait to find recruits for terrorism. The Iranian mullahs have been able to recruit from among the large Shi'ite minority in Kuwait and take them to Tehran for training at the Guards Corps bases. After the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in August 1990, tens of thousands of Kuwaiti-Iranians returned to Iran. The mullahs' intelligence and Guards Corps forces became very active in locating suitable candidates. Currently, the regime is trying to expand its influence in Kuwait through those Iranians who return to Kuwait and by taking advantage of the chaotic situation there after the Persian Gulf War.
The presence of a large Shi'ite population, the Afghanistan problem, violent clashes between pro-Saudi groups and pro-Iranian forces, and especially the possibility of carrying out terrorist attacks against the Mojahedin's supporters, have turned Pakistan into a center for the mullahs' terrorism. Pakistan's close relations with Iran, in particular, give the mullahs enormous room to maneuver and expand their activities. Tehran's embassy in Islamabad coordinates terrorist actions in Pakistan and oversees the work of the following terrorist centers: the Iranian consulates in Karachi and Lahore; the Islamic societies in Lahore, Karachi, and Peshawar; and Iran's cultural houses in Karachi and Quetta. In addition, the Intelligence Ministry and the Guard Corps employ many of their operatives in Karachi and Lahore in the guise of restaurateurs and shop owners.
The long arm of Iran's terrorists stretches to Turkey, Pakistan, and India in Asia; Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait in the Middle East; Belgium, France, Austria, Sweden, Italy, Cyprus, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Greece in Europe; and Argentina in Latin America. The extent to which the mullahs enjoy a free rein to maneuver and operate-whether in the framework of diplomatic institutions or business facilities or other suitable cover in any given country - is directly correlated to the frequency and the number of terrorist activities in those countries. One can certainly say that the mullahs' regime is neither inclined nor able to abandon terrorism as one of the primary instruments of its foreign policy.32 One Tehran-based foreign diplomat noted, "The difference between now and before is that they do not want to get caught."33 The mullahs may try to exercise more caution in pursuing their terrorism, but terrorism will remain intertwined with the mullahs' foreign policy.
