Erfan Fard
On 17th August 2023, cunningly and absurdly, Khamenei said, “The IRGC is the largest Counter Terrorism organization in the entire world.” The speech of so-called Ayatollah – it means sign of God – is of little consequence. As far as the eye can see, the multidimensional IRGC’s crimes such as terrorism, drug trafficking or Recruiting Child Sex Workers are unquestionable.
Albeit the IRGC is defending Iran’s Khomeinist regime after 1979 rebel. The IRGC and Qods Force (IRGC-QF) are separate from Iran and Iranians. Undeniably, all of them are involved in terrorism as a tool to preserve Shia terrorist partners and proxies globally.
Beside the marketing and promotion in terrorism, IRGC of Iranian regime is one of the drug-trafficking hubs in the globe, and some of the drugs producers in Asia and Middle East are trafficking to the European countries through Iran. As it Illustrated by some official reports, IRGC is monitoring this transporting illicit drug materials, smuggling, trading, and drug trafficking across the country to support its terrorist activities. To Clear this point, as an example, the main partners of IRGC in Kurdistan, PJAK, PKK, and KGK are involved in Narco-Terrorism or drug trade to financing the terror network. Hence, all of them are designated as terror organizations.
According to many intelligence reports, many of these criminal groups, such as PKK, PYD, and PJAK have been involved in drug transportation in Europe and Africa. According to the German authorities, the PKK has seized control of 80% of drugs in Europe. Pointedly, some Intelligence reports estimate that Drug transportation and money laundering are a tool and a lucrative means to carry out terrorist activities and provide sustainable incomes for the group’s members.
Notably, “With the start of the popular uprising in Syria in 2011, the Syrian branch of the PKK increased its PYD/YPG activities, and after the gradual withdrawal of the Assad regime, it dominated the Kurdish regions”. To please the theocratic regime in Iran, PKK senior leaders and PYD/YPG, were substantial actors in assisting Assad’s regime. For these criminal groups, democracy or regime change in Syria was an important issue.
In spite of the fact that some EU countries are aware of the PYD/PKK’s offshoots and the clan’s generating income through drug trafficking from the Middle East to Europe for sustaining its terrorist activities, propaganda and recruitment activities in Europe. Indisputably, the IRGC and the PKK formed an alliance with a long, pragmatic history of collaboration and partnership. The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported that the Iran-sponsored Shia militias in Iraq collaborated with the PKK to target the Turkish military base in the Kurdistan region. In Iraq, IRGC has always been sympathetic to the PKK and the Shia militias prevent the PKK from collapse.
In these decades, several PKK senior leaders (Cemîl Bayik, Osman Öcelan and etc) have secretly visited Iran and met with the IRGC. Since 1990s, the IRGC started to aid, train and arm PKK, and provided them with a safe haven, health assistance, and facility camps inside Iran. For example, “in 1992, approximately 800 PKK fighters were trained by the IRGC in 20 camps inside Iran. Back in 1986, the IRGC provided PKK with a safe haven” [Jerusalem]. According to intelligence reports, by the end of 1997, the IRGC hosted 7000 PKK fighters inside the Iranian territory.
Notably, Turkey’s effort is to strengthen political and economic ties with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and family of Barzani. Therefore, “The alliance of the PKK and the IRGC struggling to undermine the Turkish-Kurdish energy plans.”
Also, “regional context of the PKK-KDP Competition in energy market” is not so noteworthy.
The reality is the PKK and KDP have strong ties with IRGC. The main mission of PKK, as a major foreign narcotic trafficker, is to facilitate IRGC in the worldwide drug trade with considerable stakes.
Though, Hezbollah’s narco-terrorism is a growing cross-border threat. Likewise, Hezbollah- the “Party of God” – has significantly enlarged and institutionalized its drug trafficking enterprises everywhere.
To illustrate, Funding Violence with Drugs is the main market of IRGC and its proxies or Violent non-state actors (VNSAs): The Cases of Hezbollah and the PKK are the best examples. Hezbollah and the PKK use illicit or black-market relations and criminal networks to receive huge amounts of easy money under the eyes of IRGC.
Surely, these criminal activities are the primary prevalent challenge for the international order. So, to complicate matters further, IRGC by using VNSAs, such as the PKK terrorist networks and Hezbollah, threatening the world dramatically. IRGC and its affiliates, “have intensified their criminal activities and enlarged their networks in the Middle East as VNSAs including terrorist organizations have found new safe heavens in these collapsed states”.
As an example, there is a deep illegal activity of Hezbollah-affiliated groups in South America are Latin America. IRGC, Hezbollah-affiliated groups under the cover of several charities or religious centers have a role in these clandestine and transnational criminal activities including drug trafficking or illicit trafficking of weapons, drugs and humans. This threat has grown significantly during recent decades.
However, also known as Transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and terrorist groups operate differently. There are pro-Hezbollah Shia groups – criminal actors and other transregional gangs – in more than a few Latin American countries, which have been facing a narco-terrorism problem endlessly. These transnational criminal organizations are allies of IRGC in Tehran.
The most recent drug cases show a kind of intense cooperation among a varied array of actors, such as Coordinating the logistics, and sharing the profits and revenues, which are under the supervision and support from Iran’s IRGC.
Oddly, all Shiite terrorist groups have shown an increasing inclination to work with partners, including even criminal affiliates of Sunni extremist groups such as ISIS (the Islamic State). It means, they like to make money and there is no difference among Sunni or Shiite criminals!
Therefore, some U.S. and European intelligence and Middle Eastern intelligence officials believe that eventually, these transnational terrorist network shaped a club drug in the Persian Gulf as well. Touch wood, these faithful Muslims are true believers, it is a distinction without a difference.
The FBI counterterrorism official know that “Some Hezbollah notorious operatives ultimately sophisticated links with Latin American drug cartels, which became partners in complicated networks for contraband smuggling and money-laundering schemes.” Most of journals reported that “Hezbollah’s Global Networks and Latin American Cocaine Trade” is an undisputable issue.
Furthermore, Hezbollah as well as certain elements of the Iranian Quds force are cooperating with cartels like Los Zetas, the most sophisticated drug cartel in Mexico. Hezbollah and Iran have been concentrating on developing a presence in Latin America for years. A recent example of this resolve shows that Iran’s Quds forces struggled to recruit members of the “Los Zetas” cartel to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States.
As well, IRGC with its affiliates among cartels are working in Recruiting Child Sex Workers, there are plenty reports regarding “Trafficking in Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean” and “Crime organizations in Mexico. Tragically, this dynamic is not unique to Mexico.
In fact, it is imperative for intelligence analysts to fully analyze and investigate all possibilities of this alliance. So, the terrorist-criminal nexus of Hezbollah and Los Zetas implies that terrorists are now seeking new ways to produce money for terrorist operations.
It is no longer a secret that, Iranian women, boys, and girls are vulnerable to sex trafficking abroad, including in Afghanistan, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR), Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Based on a report by US State Department “Iranian regime is involved in sex trafficking. The government directly facilitates the commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of adults and children throughout the country; Iranian police, IRGC, Basij, religious clerics, and parents of victims are involved in or turn a blind eye to sex trafficking crimes.”
To assist its criminal activities, IRGC cooperates with a broad range of facilitators globally. Indeed, IRGC decisively controls its covert operations and illicit criminal activities to be as unclear as probable.
Simply put, IRGC and its network has been engaged in countless political, criminal, and terrorist activities for nearly 44 years. Also, an alliance between terrorist groups and TCOs allows these types of illicit activities to maintain a level of consistency in our world today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Erfan Fard is a counter-terrorism analyst and Middle East Studies researcher based in Washington, DC. He is in Middle Eastern regional security affairs with a particular focus on Iran, counter terrorism, IRGC, MOIS and ethnic conflicts in MENA. He graduated in International Security Studies (London M. University, UK), and in International Relations (CSU-LA). Erfan is a Jewish Kurd of Iran, and he is fluent in Persian, Kurdish, Arabic and English. / Follow him from this twitter account @EQFARD / The newly published book of Erfan Fard is: “The gruesome mullah” , which has been published in the USA.