IRAN RISES

Lebanese Hezbollahis among the Forces of Repression

June 25, 2009

The history of employing foreign  forces in our country’s military framework, such as the Revolutionary Guards, goes back to the Imposed War [the Iran-Iraq War, which is considered to have been imposed on Iran], when Iraqi dissidents who were members of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) served Iran in a brigade called the Ninth Badr Brigade and, of course, later Afghans and Lebanese Arabs were distinguished and prominent in the service of the Qods Corps forces. And in the current situation, it has been some time that two special brigades of the Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Corps, one based in the neighborhood of the Voice and Vision [the Iranian government's electronic media organization], near the Tehran International Stadium, which is composed of remnants of the Ninth Badr Brigade, and is responsible for guarding the Voice and Vision; and the other brigade is on Imam Khomeini Street in Tehran, alongside the special Tenth Brigade Lord of Martyrs, as a reserve bridade protecting Tehran, which is composed of Afghans and Lebanese and Syrian Arabs, and they work in the security framework of Tehran. Four years ago, when the security forces began their new guidance and security patrols, which were known as the “Black Car Drivers”, there were strong rumors about the deployment in them of foreign and Arabic-speaking forces. These rumors were confirmed by eye-witness accounts when a newspaper reporter in Tehran announced that it was searching for one of these patrol squads and was about to interview them, but of the four people riding its jeep, only one of them spoke Persian well. It was after this that the commander at the time of the greater Tehran security forces announced that these people and many other of these patrols were from the reserve security forces of Khuzestan [a largely Arab province of Iran], who would be brought into action in other provinces when needed! Of course, this explanation and this authority’s answer was not only unconvincing, but put a seal of approval on all these rumors. In the coup d’etat and the repression in Tehran and the provinces after the recent elections, the rumor once again became common that the Revolutionary Guards were using Arabs, particularly Lebanese, to repress the protesters. Of course, given the Iranian propensity to always blame any kind of killing and looting on others, and we see that this accusation has even included Ahmadinejad and Khamene’i, of whom it is said that they are not Iranians (!), this rumor remained in the sphere of rumors, until today….

If you will recall, during the elections, and even before the elections and the voting had been finished, groups were attacking Engineer Musavi’s headquarters in Tehran and occupying them and these offices were, on orders of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, sealed, the courts have yet to either confirm or deny their respnsibility for these acts, but in the pro-government press, where they still repeat the same threadbare talk  about these attacks, the participation of plainclothesmen and vigilantes in these actions are mentioned, but what is certain is that the above offices are sealed and many of the people in them have been arrested and are still under arrest to this day. The office occupiers who began this bloody coup were evidently so deliriously happy that, after occupying them, they took souvenir pictures as well! I have managed to get access to some of these pictures. Among them is a picture of a famous member of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the brother of Martyr Ali Munif Ashmar,¹ who is among the martyrs of Lebanese Hezbollah suicide operations and who has been repeatedly encouraged and mourned by His Eminence Khamenei’i.

In these two pictures, you see Husein Munif Ashmar, alongside two other members of Lebanese Hezbollah, who, taking up a walkie-talkie and a gun, which can be seen under his shirt, went to serve the Revolutionary Guards’ forces of repression, or, better, coup d’etat. And now, with these pictures, we can specifically and with documentation announce that indeed the Revolutionary Guard has used Lebanese Hezbollah in the recent repression, and it is here that it becomes clear that all that financial and military aid to Lebanese Hezbollah did not go to waste, that this aid and cooperation was not going in one direction and that Lebanese Hezbollah, too, would rush to the aid of the Islamic Republic in its time of need!

http://www.goftaniha.org/2009/06/blog-post_4044.html

Footnote

1“On March 20, 1996 ‘Ali Ashmar conducted Hizbullah’s eleventh “mar-
tyrdom operation” in the Town of Rub Thalathin in al-‘Daysé killing two
according to Israel military sources. In an attempt to curtail Hizbullah, from
April 11 till April 18, 1996, Israel launched a massive attack against southern
Lebanon killing more than 150 civilians – including 102 civilians seeking
shelter in the UN headquarters in the Lebanese village of Qana – and dis-
placing around half a million others.” (Joseph Elie Alagha, “The Shifts in Hizbullah’s Ideology” (ISIM / Amsterdam University Press, 2006), http://www.isim.nl/files/Dissertation_Alagha.pdf)

(UPDATE July 4, 2009)
The latest issue of al-Ahwaz, the newspaper of the National Liberation Movement of Ahwaz, (“The National Liberation Movement of Ahwaz, which advocates independence, operates Ahwaz TV, a satellite channel with an on-screen caption giving a fax number with a California area code. Another satellite channel, Al-Ahwaz TV, broadcast by Iranian exiles in California, is linked to the British-Ahwaz Friendship Society, which advocates regional autonomy for the province in a federal Iran,” according to Selig Harrison.) claims that Hezbollahi forces are swarming around Khuzestan.

(UPDATE July 21, 2009)
The role of foreign fighters in Iran according to Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, a former fighter in the Qods special forces.