In early August 2025, a joint statement by over 2,000 clerics from Qom publicly reiterated a call for the execution of the President of the United States, a demand first made weeks earlier by a senior cleric in Tehran. While such threats are often dismissed as provocative rhetoric, a new report from the U.S. Representative Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI-US) reveals they are the public manifestation of a newly structured and dangerously evolving state terror apparatus, operating under the direct authority of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The report, released on August 7, 2025, exposes the command-and-control system behind Tehran’s global terrorist operations. It details the creation of a new central command post named after the deceased IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani and reveals how the regime is increasingly outsourcing assassinations on European soil to international criminal syndicates to ensure plausible deniability.
🔶 NCRI-US Press Conference: NCRI Reveals the Command Structure of the Iranian Regime’s Extraterritorial Terrorist Operations
It implicates the regime's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a string of plots and attacks across Europe and the United States.
Aug 7, 2025 – Washington, DC pic.twitter.com/r8Fhb3cwrG— NCRI-U.S. Rep Office (@NCRIUS) August 7, 2025
Terror from the Top: A Centralized Chain of Command
The NCRI-US report makes it clear that the regime’s terror plots are not the actions of rogue elements but are meticulously planned and approved at the highest levels of the state. The document pinpoints the ultimate authority for these operations, leaving no room for ambiguity. “An examination of the hierarchy behind the Iranian regime’s recent terrorist plots in Western countries reveals that Ali Khamenei, as the Supreme Leader of the clerical dictatorship, stands at the apex of decision-making,” the report states. This top-down structure, involving the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the IRGC, and the Supreme National Security Council, ensures that extraterritorial terrorism remains a core instrument of state policy, personally directed by Khamenei.
The Nerve Center: The “Qassem Soleimani Headquarters”
A key revelation is the existence of a new entity within the Ministry of Intelligence specifically designed to streamline overseas terror plots. This command center, named the “Qassem Soleimani Headquarters,” is headed by Seyyed Yahya Hosseiny Panjaki, who concurrently serves as the Deputy Minister of Intelligence. According to the report, this headquarters serves as the central hub that “coordinates terrorist plots abroad between the Ministry of Intelligence, the IRGC Intelligence Organization, and the IRGC Quds Force.” This consolidation of command under a high-ranking intelligence official demonstrates a significant effort by the regime to make its terrorist operations more efficient and coordinated.
The Modus Operandi: Outsourcing Terror to the Underworld
The report details a strategic shift in how Tehran executes its attacks, increasingly relying on foreign criminal gangs to carry out plots. This method was starkly illustrated in the November 9, 2023, assassination attempt against Professor Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former Vice President of the European Parliament, in Madrid. Spanish police investigations revealed that a criminal gang, the “Moroccan mafia,” was hired for the attack. The NCRI-US report links this network to Unit 840 of the IRGC’s Quds Force, which specializes in extraterritorial operations.
Exclusive: Following today’s conference exposing Tehran’s terror command, @A_Jafarzadeh detailed the regime’s chain of command, Khamenei’s direct role, and the FBI-wanted MOIS officials.
A must-watch.#FreeIran2025 #Iran pic.twitter.com/t8u3BIExZH— SIMAY AZADI TV (@en_simayazadi) August 7, 2025
This was not an isolated incident. A similar model was used in the foiled March 2018 bomb plot targeting the Nowruz celebration of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in Tirana, Albania. While the operation was “entirely planned by the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC’s Quds Force,” the report notes that “the actual bombers were recruited from Turkish and Balkan criminal gangs.”
However, for operations deemed particularly sensitive, the regime still relies on its own operatives. In the foiled plot to bomb the NCRI’s “Free Iran” gathering in Villepinte, Paris, in June 2018, which was attended by tens of thousands, the regime deployed one of its senior diplomats, Assadollah Assadi. Assadi, who served as the MOIS station chief in Vienna, personally delivered the explosives, demonstrating the regime’s willingness to risk its official diplomatic assets for high-value targets.
A Policy of Weakness and a Call for Action
The report concludes that this escalation and tactical evolution in state terrorism is not a sign of strength, but a calculated response to growing internal instability. “This expanding terrorist network is designed to compensate for the regime’s deep vulnerability inside Iran and the severe weakening of its proxy forces in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region,” it asserts.
Faced with these clear and present dangers, the NCRI-US report puts forward a set of essential measures to counter the regime’s terrorism. It calls for the immediate closure of all Iranian embassies and affiliated centers, which serve as hubs for espionage and terror planning. It urges European nations to follow the United States in designating the MOIS and IRGC as terrorist entities, to prosecute and expel all known regime agents, and to hold the regime and its Supreme Leader accountable for over four decades of state-sponsored terrorism through comprehensive international sanctions.