In the eyes of most Iranians, it is the supreme leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards ( #IRGC ) who make major political and foreign policy decisions.
On #TheGlobalJigsaw we looked into the structure and role of the IRGC:
Watching the most recent music video of #ToomajSalehi who has been sentenced to death by the government of Iran basically for protesting them and rapping.
#Iran ’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps ( #IRGC ), has posted a video with a caption saying: “Isfahan’s nuclear site is completely safe”.
According to the World Nuclear Association, the #Isfahan#Nuclear Technology Centre includes a #uranium conversion facility (UCF), which produces uranium hexafluoride.
The Israeli military has conducted missile strikes against Iran, a snr #UnitedStates#military ofcl told NPR Thurs. There are also reports of explosions in #Iraq & #Syria.
Iran's Fars News Agency says explosions were heard in the central city of #Isfahan, according to the Reuters News Agency.
The extent of Israel's strikes & the weapons used weren't clear.
"Some reports from foreign news agencies about incidents in these facilities is incorrect," reported the news agency, which is aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (#IRGC).
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard: We have carried out an operation with drones and missiles in response to the Zionist entity's crime of targeting our consulate in #Syria.
The operation was conducted using dozens of missiles and drones to strike specific targets in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israeli channel 13: According to reports, the ship that was boarded and moved by Iran's IRGC is the container ship MSC Aries, which carries the flag of Portugal and is partly owned by the British shipping company "Zodiac" owned by Israeli businessman Eyal Ofer.
If you would like to know more about the role of the #IRGC , the #Quds force as well as the #Basij militias in general, #TheGlobalJigsaw is happy to take you through the narratives:
Unconfirmed reports from Iran claim that IRGC have deployed it's entire arsenal of it's flagship icbm Khorramshahr-4 nicknamed Kheybar (referring to historical fighting between Muslim prophet and Jewish tribal opposing him that led to destruction of Khaybar castle by Muslim troops).
The missiles were previously used during the attacks against ISIS targets in Syria (as many claimed to be the test run for attacking targets in Israel).
Kheybar is 13m long and weights 20tons with a massive warhead of 1500kg, can reach the maximum 16mach and supposedly has a mach 8 speed on impact.
No one really knows how many of these missiles are produced and operational.
#TheGlobalJigsaw has looked into the #Iran -cultivated alliance of like-minded states and groups snd the ideological underpinnings - Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps or #IRGC , the #Quds force and the #Basij militias: what are they, how do they operate and how have they become so influential in the Middle East https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct6qpb
Following is a thread of quotes from #TheGlobalJigsaw latest episode on the #IRGC, #Quds force, #Basij militias - and th ideological blueprint for #Iran so called Axis of Resistance. Whole episode here:
the #Quds force was not a household name until a few years ago - they emerged into the spotlight under the command of Qasem #Soleimani - he was a construction worker at the time in Kerman, with little formal schooling, but thanks to the revolution he became an #IRGC paramilitary. He was involved both in the suppression of the #Kurdish revolts in ethnic Kurdish regions of #Iran in 1979, but also gained status as a kind of a war hero in the Iran-Iraq war
He was already a notorious figure around the time of the Arab Spring and the outbreak of the #Syrian civil war.
In #Syria first it was #Soleimani 's role in ensuring that the #IRGC propped up the govt of Bashar al #Assad after the outbreak of civil war - he reportedly personally convinced the supreme leader, who he had a direct line to, to intervene in Syria on Assad's behalf. And then again, reportedly goes to #Moscow to convince #Putin to intervene in Syria on Assad’s behalf.
(cont.)
In 1999 #Iran had a hostile neighbour to its east in the Islamic Emirate of the #Taliban in #Afghanistan. And it was there that #Soleimani , after 911, used the #IRGC ’s knowledge of Taliban bases to help the #US when it came to the invasion in 2001. Because although the IRGC was rhetorically opposed to the US, it was the Taliban that posed the more present danger. Although the IRGC went on to cooperate with various factions of the Taliban against the Republic in Afghanistan after 2001.
cont
#Soleimani ’s assassination seems to have given a new impetus to the so-called #AxisOfResistance - the network of groups in the region doing #ran ’s bidding. This network is far from homogenous - each group has its own agenda.
These range from pure proxies like some #Iraqi militias and #Afghan and #Pakistani#Shia mercenary groups, which are the absolute creations of the #IRGC with little independent decision making power and ideologically absolutely line of the Islamic republic.
(cont.)
from the lense of the #IRGC in particular what these groups and allies provide is a screen of responsibility - it provides a means of plausible deniability for #Iran to both engage its enemies militarily and also deny the kind of direct responsibility that perhaps could provoke a broader conflagration.
In the second part of this mini series on the #AxisOfResistance we’ll go to more #BBCMonitoring colleagues - to see how groups linked to the Resistance serve #Iran ’s interests.
The #Houthis are definitely backed by #Iran . We've also seen reports that #IRGC advisers are in #Yemen . But again in terms of the extent to which they take orders or not from Iran is not quite clear.
It quickly gets very complicated because here we're talking about literally dozens of entities. they've entrenched themselves within #Iraqi society. It's a very dangerous situation going forwards where the army does not have the monopoly on the use of force.
(cont.)
The #IRGC is essentially the life saver of the #Syrian government. You can't really look at it any other way. But #Assad now has oil rich Gulf friends: #Saudi Arabia, the #UAE Iran cannot allow the Saudis to take a space If it thinks it has a chance to get in there.
#TheGlobalJigsaw has looked into how Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps or #IRGC, the #Quds force and the #Basij militias operate and how have they become so influential. We examined the ideological blueprint of the #Tehran-led influence network that has been shaping events in the Middle East for decades:
In last week's #TheGlobalJigsaw we attempted to deconstruct #Iran 's narrative + the ideological blueprint and tools of the Islamic Republic - it is worth a listen to understand the current push and pull tactics: