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The clerical regime's disinformation agencies |
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Freitag, 27 Mai 2005 |
The clerical regime has invested greatly on disinformation campaigns
and demonizing strategies against the Iranian Resistance and set up an
elaborate apparatus to implement it. The Ministry of Intelligence and
Security (MOIS), the ICCO, the Foreign and Islamic Guidance ministries
and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are all involved in
psychological warfare against the PMOI.
The clerical regime’s propaganda campaign against its opponents was
originally modeled on the activities and modus operandi of the former
Soviet KGB’s disinformation department. Foreign instructors who trained
Iranian operatives in “psychological warfare” and propaganda techniques
in the early 1980s were mainly from the Eastern bloc countries. Many
Revolutionary Guards and Intelligence Ministry officers who rose to
prominence in the latter half of the 1990s as journalists, editors or
politicians, were among the first generation of trainees in these
special courses.
Iran’s convoluted propaganda machine conducts complex disinformation
operations that may seem incidental or spontaneous to an unsuspecting
mind: identical reports appear simultaneously in second- or third-rate
European or American tabloids on alleged involvement of the PMOI in the
suppression of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites; a few “asylum-seekers” emerge
from nowhere to claim that they were mistreated by the PMOI many years
ago; state-run newspapers in Iran report that the [former] Iraqi regime
is hiding its weapons of mass destruction in PMOI camps.
In the absence of reliable information on how such propaganda is being
disseminated by the clerical regime’s agencies, one may rightly assume
that both sides to this conflict have vested interests in making these
claims and counter-claims. The mullahs’ “target audience” is sometimes
affected by the propaganda and most of the times perplexed or confused.
Either outcome is a win for the mullahs, for at least some shadow of
doubt would be cast on their principal opposition group. Goebbels’
infamous “big lie” principle would seem to work for the mullahs.
The Resistance has responded to this propaganda blitz by relying on its
extensive information-gathering network inside Iran to identify the
agencies and officials involved in this psychological warfare and
expose confidential documents and evidence relating to their activities.
The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), chaired by President
Mohammad Khatami, is the highest authority that coordinates this
campaign. The council’s secretary, Hojjatol-Islam Hassan Rowhani, is a
confidant of ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, while Ali Rabii, a
former MOIS deputy and a Khatami protégé, heads the SNSC’s executive
secretariat. Supreme Leader Khamenei approves the council’s important
decisions.
The mullahs’ extensive propaganda against the PMOI began from the very
first day they assumed power. But their “psychological warfare”
operations swung into action after the 1991 [Persian] Gulf war against
Iraq. In those years, the mullahs tried to take advantage of the
post-conflict mayhem in the region to finish off their main opponents,
the PMOI. The MOIS sharply expanded its operations to achieve this
objective. Tehran pumped up more anti-Mojahedin propaganda, while its
hit squads stepped up the assassination of dissidents abroad. From 1990
to 1993, MOIS hit squads targeted prominent opposition figures in
Geneva, Rome, Karachi, Istanbul, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Oslo, Stockholm
and Baghdad. At the same time, the MOIS recruited a number of PMOI
defectors in Europe to enhance its anti-Mojahedin misinformation
campaign.
The MOIS remained very active against Iranian dissidents in Europe
throughout the 1990s and was described in successive annual reports by
the U.S. State Department on global terrorism as “the most active state
sponsor of terrorism” in the world. A top Iranian official acknowledged
that the MOIS had carried out “hundreds of attacks” on the PMOI in Iraq
alone while Saeed Emami was the MOIS deputy minister.
In March 1996, the German Federal Prosecutor issued an international
arrest warrant for then-Iranian intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian for
having ordered the assassination of four Iranian dissidents at the
Mykonos, a Greek restaurant in Berlin, on September 17, 1992. In final
statements in late November 1996, German prosecutors charged Iranian
Supreme Leader Khamenei and then-Iranian President Rafsanjani with
approving the operation. Guilty verdicts for four of the accused were
announced in April 1997 and the court established that a Joint
Committee for Special Operations made up of Khamenei, Rafsanjani,
Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian and Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar
Velayati, was responsible for approving plans to assassinate Iranian
dissidents abroad.
Iranian embassies were often the main hub of intelligence and terrorist
activities against dissidents abroad. The international security
organization, Global Security, reported: “One example of the
coordinated efforts of Iranian intelligence is found in Iran's
diplomatic mission in Bonn at Godesberger Allee 133-137, which is the
headquarters of the Iranian intelligence services in Europe. Some 20
staff members work for the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and
representatives from other agencies also use the embassy's specially
secured third floor, where six offices and a radio room are reserved
for the agents. From the six-story building in the government district
the services monitor the 100,000 Iranians living in Germany, harass
undesirable opposition members, and attempt to procure technology in
Germany for the production of nuclear, chemical, and biological
weapons. In the German language area alone, there are as many as 100
firms allegedly under Iranian influence for the procurement of such
sensitive technology. Other bases of operations include the consulates
in Frankfurt and Hamburg, and the Imam-Ali Mosque in Hamburg, said to
be the largest Muslim religious centre outside the Islamic world.”
The next major change in the activities of the Iranian intelligence
abroad came in the wake of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and
the war in Afghanistan. At the time, the SNSC decided to exploit the
new political circumstances and focus its international efforts on the
PMOI to persuade other governments, particularly the European Union
countries, to designate the PMOI and the National Council of Resistance
of Iran as terrorist organizations. Tehran was attempting to kill two
birds with one stone: deliver a political blow to the Iranian
Resistance and divert global attention from its terrorist record.
As a diplomatic offensive got underway to seek further restrictions on
PMOI activities in other countries, the clerical regime embarked on a
new misinformation campaign. The MOIS summoned a number of its agents
to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Tehran to brief and instruct
them to intensify their activities against the PMOI. MOIS agents Karim
Haggi, Mohammad-Reza Haggi, Ahmad Shams-Haeri and Mehdi Khoshhal were
instructed to pass a series of false reports on the PMOI to police and
security services in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavian
countries.
The clerical regime also increased the number of publications and
articles that sought to demonize the PMOI. To this end, the MOIS
assembled a group of writers and analysts in Kayhan, the largest
government-owned publishing house in Iran, run by Hossein
Shariatmadari. Shariatmadari, a brigadier-general of the Revolutionary
Guards and a close confidant of Khamenei, is a veteran interrogator,
torturer and propagandist who has been a key player in the clerical
regime’s disinformation operations since the 1980s.
The MOIS has also sent thousands of anti-Mojahedin letters from Iran to
parliamentarians and officials in Europe. The letters, with different
signatures but often identical texts and handwriting, accuse the PMOI
of terrorism and murder of innocent civilians. They call on recipients
to designate the PMOI as terrorist. In an article in Sweden’s daily
Göteborg Posten on 19 January 2002, Cecilia Malmström, a Swedish member
of the European Parliament, unveiled one example of MOIS schemes to
influence parliamentarians.
Islamic Culture and Communications Organization
Parallel agencies involved in the export of terrorism and
fundamentalism sustained a number of blows in several countries,
prompting the regime to reorganize and consolidate them. In early 1995,
Khamenei brought those agencies active in export of fundamentalism and
anti-Mojahedin propaganda campaign outside Iran under one unified
organization: The Islamic Culture and Communications Organization,
ICCO. He appointed Iraqi-born cleric Mohammad Ali Taskhiri as the head
of the ICCO. Khamenei himself heads ICCO’s Supreme Policymaking
Council, which holds its meetings at his house.
The ICCO has five directorates - publications, communications, cultural
logistics, research, administration and financial affairs - each of
which has several subordinate departments. Cultural attachés in
embassies abroad are linked to the ICCO’s communications directorate.
The ICCO has three sets of objectives:
- Anti-Mojahedin activities, including recruitment of operatives
among deserters from the ranks of the Resistance, pursuance of a
psychological warfare, employing other opposition figures in
anti-Mojahedin actions;
- Penetration of Iranian exile communities abroad through
Farsi-language radios and other means, recruitment of agents and
encouraging Iranians to return to Iran and infiltrating Iranian
associations and groups;
- Exporting fundamentalism to other countries, including
recruitment and organization of fundamentalist forces in Islamic
nations, penetration of Muslim communities in Western countries for
recruitment and incitement purposes, recruitment of Muslims,
particularly Shiites, for terrorist hit squads.
During Khatami’s presidency, the ICCO stepped up the scope of its
activities. Khatami appointed three cabinet ministers to ICCO’s Supreme
Policymaking Council and increased the budget for this entity by 15
percent.
Cultural attachés, who are trained intelligence agents, play an
important role in the export of fundamentalism. Often they act as
“talent spotters,” reaching out to fundamentalist groups in their
countries of assignment and identifying individuals to recruit. New
recruits will ultimately be sent to Iran via third countries for
ideological indoctrination and terrorist training.
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