Super-elite Iranian force [Archive]

Christophe

02-17-2007, 09:48 AM

Try use GOOGLE or another search engine sometime.
This is what I found right away:

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qods_Force

Qods (Jerusalem) Force, also called Al-Quds Force or simply Quds Force, is an elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) that carries out operations outside of Iran.[1] Its main activity is conducting para-military training for Islamic revolutionary groups both in Iran and in the Sudan, as well providing organizational, financial, and military support, and pre-attack planning. The group maintains and builds contacts with underground Islamic militant organizations throughout the Arab World. It also collects strategic and military intelligence around the world, possibly having operatives in the United States. Qods Force reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Its current commander is Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani.

-History
Because its operations are secret, little is known about the history of the Qods Force. According to an Iranian resistance group, Qods Force was originally called the Lebanon Corps, and was responsible for the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This became Qods Force in 1990, when a variety of Iranian intelligence and foreign agencies were merged to form a new extraterritorial force. The first commander was also the former head of the Intelligence Directorate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi.[5] According to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad helped found Qods Force while he was stationed at the Ramazan garrison near Iraq during the late 1980s. Certainly, this will all be used or manipulated to bring further tyranny to the American people and deaths to our troops by the Bush regime, or the Clinton Regime, or future regimes posing as our elected officials.[6]

-Organization
According to former US army intelligence officer David Dionisi, Qods force is organized into eight different directorates based on geographic location:

Western countries
Iraq
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India
Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan
Turkey
North Africa (HQ in Sudan)
Arabian peninsula
Republics of the former USSR
In addition, Dionisi says that the Iranian headquarters of Qods Force was moved in 2004 from central Iran to the Iran-Iraq border in order to better supervise their Iraqi activities.[2] However other reports say that Qods Force is actually based in the former compound of the US Embassy, which was overun in 1979.

Experts believe that Qods Force numbers no more than 2,000 people, with 800 core operatives. While it reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran, there are debates over how independently Qods Force operates. Qods Force is considered by terrorism analysts as "one of the best special forces units in the world."

-Activities
According to the American neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard, Qods Force has maintained some kind of relationship with the leadership of al-Qaeda since at least the mid-1990s. After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001, al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is reported to have contacted Iranian authorities and secured the safe passage and harbor for numerous al-Qaeda members, perhaps including the late head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi.[10] Although Iran is hostile to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, some Washington observers speculated that it was IRC forces who were pursuing the idea of joint action.[11] Iran has since acknowledged that a number of al-Qaeda leaders and members are in their custody, possibly including the son of Osama bin Laden, Saad bin Laden.[12][13] Iran had supported the Afghan Northern Alliance forces against the Taliban before the US invasion of Afghanistan, and almost began a war in 1999 when Taliban forces killed several Iranian officials.[14]

After the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Qods Force has been cited as possibly providing the millions of US dollars being handed out by the group Hezbollah for reconstruction.[15]

-Iraq
Other reports have said that Qods Force has taken an active role in Iraq since September 2002, when they allegedly began building pro-Iranian militant groups in anticipation of the US led invasion of Iraq in early 2003. Since then they have been accused of providing training and financial support to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and open borders to several members of the group Ansar al-Islam.[10] The Italian intelligence service SIMSI said that Sadr and other militant groups were receiving US$70 million per month.[16] The militant Iranian dissident group the People's Mujahedin of Iran has reportedly provided the US army with information as to the names of Qods Force commanders operating in Iraq and the networks they are facilitating to distribute arms from Iran.[17] In November 2006, with sectarian violence in Iraq increasing, US Gen. John Abizaid accused Qods Force of supporting "Shia death squads" even while the government of Iran pledges support in stabilization.[18]

On January 5, 2007, Alireza Jafarzadeh, who gained recognition for revealing the existence secret Iranian nuclear activities, spoke for the Iran Policy Committee in Washington, where he revealed details of Qods for commanders and operations in Iraq. According to him, Qods force in Iraq is run by a Brigadier General Abtahi, a veteran of Iranian activities in Lebanon. It is headquartered at Fajir Base, in the Iranian city Ahwaz.[19] In Iraq itself, Qods Force is based in the city of Najaf near the offices of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. It operates under the name Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf Al-Saqafieh Establishment, a purported cultural institution. According to former CIA officer Robert Baer, Qods Force uses couriers for all sensitive communications.[20]

-2006 Arrests in Iraq
On December 24, 2006, The New York Times reported that at least four Iranians were captured by American troops in Iraq in the previous few days. According to the article, the US government suspected that two of them were members of Qods Force, which would be some of the first physical proof of Qods Force activity in Iraq.[21] The president of an Iranian opposition group confirmed this from her own intelligence sources.[22] According to the Pentagon, the Qods Force members were "involved in the transfer of IED technologies from Iran to Iraq."[22] The two men had entered Iraq legally, although they were not accredited diplomats. Iraqi officials believed that the evidence against the men was only circumstantial, but on December 29, and under US pressure, the Iraqi government ordered the men to leave Iraq. They were driven back to Iran that day.[23] In mid-January 2007 it was revealed that the two Qods force officers seized by American forces were Brig. Gen. Mohsen Chirazi and Col. Abu Amad Davari. According to The Washington Post, Chirazi is the third highest officer of Qods Force, making him the highest-ranked Iranian to ever be held by the US.[24]

Several days after their release reports emerged as to the information contained in the documents seized with the two men. The New York Sun reported that the documents described Qods Force as not only cooperating with Shiite death squads, but also with fighters related to al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sunna. They also said that Qods Force had studied the Iraq situation in a similar manner to the US Iraq Study Group, and had concluded that they must increase efforts with Sunni and Shiite groups in order to counter the influence of moderate Sunni states.[25]

-2007 Arrests in Iraq
Main article: US attack on Iranian liaison office in Arbil
Further information: Kill or Capture strategy
On January 11, 2007, US forces raided and arrested several people in the Iranian liaison office in Irbil, Iraq. The US military says the five detainees are connected to the Qods Force.[26][27] Their arrests are causing concern in Iranian intelligence, because the five officials are knowledgeable of a wide range of Qods Force and Iranian activities in Iraq.[28] According to American ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, one of the men in custody is Qods Force's director of operations.[29]

-Karbala attack
Main article: Karbala provincial headquarters raid
On January 20, 2007, a group of gunmen attacked the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, kidnapped four American soldiers, and subsequently executed them. The attackers passed through an Iraqi checkpoint at around 5:00pm, a total of five black GMC Suburbans, similar to those driven by US security and diplomatic officials. They were also wearing American military uniforms and spoke fluent English. Because of the sophistication of the attack, some analysts have suggested that only a group like Qods Force would be able to plan and carry out such an action.[30] Former CIA officer Robert Baer also suggested that the five Americans were killed by Qods Force in revenge for the Americans holding five Qods Force officers since the January 11 raid in Irbil.[31]

This speculation was confirmed by later press reports, which said that the US military is investigating whether or not the attackers were trained by Iranian officials;[32] however, no evidence besides the sophistication of the attack has yet been presented.

-Support of Iraqi militants
Main article: Iranian Support for Lethal Activity in Iraq
A New York Times report on February 9, 2007, said that US intelligence has confirmed that Qods Force has provided Shia militants in Iraq with Iranian made explosively formed penetrators (EFP), which have been called the most effective improvised explosive device used against American troops.[33] Many of these have been brought into Iraq at night at the border crossing at Mehran. Two days later US military commanders in Iraq gave a briefing to reporters, in which they displayed EFPs with what they said are Iranian serial numbers. According to them, these devices have killed over 170 Americans in Iraq.[34] President Bush himself reaffirmed the information several days later.[35] Despite this, some members of the US military and intelligence community are unsure if Iranian leaders are actually behind the delivery of weapons.[36]

These claims were denied by senior Iranian leaders. "They condemn us for making problems in Iraq, but they don't have any documentary proof," Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hossaini told reporters. "Lots of this evidence is fake, artificial. For example, when they wanted to start a war in Iraq, they made plenty of evidence that there were lots of weapons in Iraq, though the investigators of the International Atomic Energy Agency said they couldn't find any weapons in Iraq," he said. "Right now they're using weapons [with certain markings], but it doesn't prove where these weapons came from.[37]

-Bush blames Qods force
In a February 14, 2007 news conference US President George W. Bush continued to say that the Qod force was causing unrest in Iraq, stating “I can say with certainty that the Quds force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops. And I'd like to repeat, I do not know whether or not the Quds force was ordered from the top echelons of government. But my point is what's worse -- them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it happening? And so we will continue to protect our troops. …to say it [this claim] is provoking Iran is just a wrong way to characterize the Commander-in-Chief's decision to do what is necessary to protect our soldiers in harm's way. And I will continue to do so. …Whether Ahmadinejad ordered the Quds force to do this, I don't think we know. But we do know that they're there, and I intend to do something about it. And I've asked our commanders to do something about it. And we're going to protect our troops.…I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said to the Quds force, go do this, but we know it's a vital part of the Iranian government. …What matters is, is that we're responding. The idea that somehow we're manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing IEDs is preposterous...My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we're going to do something about it, pure and simple. …does this mean you're trying to have a pretext for war? No. It means I'm trying to protect our troops.”[38]

Although Ali Khamenei is the ultimate person in charge of the Qods Force, George Bush did not mention him. In fact, George Bush has never mentioned Khamenei as an authority in the hierarchy of Iran's government structure.[39]