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U.S. scrutinizes Iranian Revolutionary Guard |
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Friday, 19 October 2007 |
Source: U.S.News & World Report
The Bush administration is investigating the wide web of business connections undertaken by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and is urging European and other countries to be on the lookout for concealed IRGC links to Iranian companies, a senior U.S. official tells U.S. News.
"We want to expose what the Revolutionary Guard is and what they're
doing," says the official. "The economic part [of the guard] is huge
and growing." The guard is an elite, 125,000-man force assigned to
protect Iran's Islamic revolution. It maintains air, land, sea,
intelligence, domestic patrol, and foreign operations units, the last
of which is said to be deeply involved in funding, training, and
supplying anti-U.S. Shiite militants in Iraq.
U.S. officials also believe the guard is involved in running a covert
military dimension to Iran's nuclear programs, supporting Hezbollah in
Lebanon and Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank and Gaza, and
serving as a hard-line pillar of the Iranian government.
Deciphering the guard's economic activities is a difficult process, the
official said, adding, "It's hard to tease out what's going where and
what's the money supporting." A key goal of exploring the guard's
activities is to be able to warn European and other countries about
inadvertent business dealings with the guard, part of the
administration's strategy of squeezing the Iranian regime's revenue
streams and access to financing.
U.S. officials are cautioning others that "there's a good chance the
hidden hand behind it [business deals with Iran] is the Revolutionary
Guard," says the official. "There is an education component to this."
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