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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Saturday replaced the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, a force U.S. officials have said Washington may label a terrorist group. Guards commander-in-chief Yahya Rahim Safavi was replaced by Mohammad Ali Jafari, who has been a commander in the Guards, Khamenei said in an order reported by state television. No reason was given for the move. "Regarding your valuable experience and shining background at different times, and varied responsibilities in the Guards, I appoint you (Jafari) ... as the commander-in-chief of this revolutionary service organization," Khamenei said. Khamenei said...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei named a new head for the elite Revolutionary Guard, an organization Washington is looking to list as a terrorist group, state media announced Saturday. No reason was given for the change and it was not clear if the reshuffle would affect the possible U.S. move to pressure businesses the corps is thought to control, from construction to oil sectors. The United States accuses the Guard of responsibility for terrorist acts abroad and especially violence against American forces in Iraq. Khamenei appointed Mohammed Ali Jafari, described only as a senior figure in...

WASHINGTON -- Although U.S. airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and military would likely overwhelm their forces, Tehran could still rely on a host of weapons, from covert terror campaigns to long-range missiles, to retaliate against an American attack. While Iran's aging conventional military forces have little hope of succesfully maintaining combat against U.S. forces in the Gulf in the case of U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities, a quick attack by Tehran on ships in the Persian Gulf, and support of anti-American militias in Iraq and Afghanistan, could prove a real threat. French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday warned that...

LONDON -- Iran's Revolutionary Guard has quietly become one of the most significant political and economic powers in the Islamic Republic, with ties to more than 100 companies, which by some estimates control more than $12 billion in business and construction, economists and Iranian political analysts say. The Guard was created in 1979 as a military and intelligence force to protect the ideals of Iran's Islamic Revolution. But the 125,000-strong force has used the massive military engineering capability it developed rebuilding the country after the 1980-88 war with Iraq to take over the strategic highlands of the Iranian economy. The...

Terror label 'paves way for air strikes' By Philip Sherwell in New York, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 1:41am BST 26/08/2007 The White House's plans to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organisation are intended to give the Bush administration cover if it launches military strikes on the Islamic republic, according to a prominent former CIA officer. Washington accuses Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps of backing attacks on American forces in Iraq Robert Baer, who was a high-ranking operative in the Middle East, said last week that senior government officials had told him the administration was preparing for air strikes...

A top Army commander in Iraq yesterday said Iran's Revolutionary Guard is trying to disrupt U.S. military gains by ramping up weapons and training support for radical Shi'ite groups. "We are up against a new wave of lethality sponsored by the enemies of the people of Iraq and its government," said Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of a division in central Iraq. He emphasized that withdrawing troops from Iraq would be a "giant step backward" — a day after Republican Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia recommended a basically symbolic pullout of some troops by Christmas. "We are finding...

Iran's Revolutionary Guard: Monolith or Jigsaw? August 24, 2007 Asharq Alawsat Amir Taheri For a quarter of a century, the regime established by Khomeini has been labelled a “mullahrchy”, a theocracy dominated by the Shi’ite clergy. Now, however, those familiar with the Iranian situation know that a majority of Shi’ite clerics never converted to Khomeinism and did not endorse the Islamic Republic. In the past few years, especially since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President in 2005, those mullahs who had converted to Khomeinism have lost some of their power privileges. Today, it is safe to say that the...

Iranian Operatives Step Up Flow of Weapons and Training to Iraq August 24, 2007 AFP WASHINGTON -- Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps operatives are trying to sabotage US security gains in Iraq by stepping up the flow of arms and training to Shiite extremist groups, a top US commander charged Friday. Major General Rick Lynch said about 20 Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members are believed to be operating in his area in central Iraq on southern and eastern outskirts of Baghdad. "The scale of the Iranian problem is especially troubling when you look at the numbers of weapons we found...

US 'poised to strike Iran' Font Size: Decrease Increase Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent | August 25, 2007 BOB Baer, the former Middle East CIA operative whose first book about his life inspired the oil-and-espionage thriller Syriana, is working on a new book on Iran, but says he was told by senior intelligence officials that he had better get it published in the next couple of months because things could be about to change. Baer, in an interview with The Weekend Australian, says his contacts in the administration suggest a strategic airstrike on Iran is a real possibility in the months...

WASHINGTON: The United States risks elevating tensions and is not likely to achieve much by declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guards a "terrorist" group, a prominent Iranian dissident who co-founded the Guards said. Mohsen Sazegara, who was a high-ranking Tehran official before turning against the government, told AFP in an interview that the US move, reported to be in the works last week, could spark a backlash, stirring up more turmoil in places where Washington accuses them of terror activities, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Now a research fellow on Iran at Harvard University, Sazegara also said he doubted blacklisting the Revolutionary...

The decision for the United States government to potentially classify the Islamic Republic's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist entity is seen by the Marze Por Gohar Party as a positive development. The Islamic Republic's own constitution clearly states the aim of this entity under the heading of “An Ideological Army” “... and so the Islamic Republic's army, and the corps of Revolutionary Guards must be organized in accordance with this aim. They have responsibility not only for the safeguarding of the frontiers, but also for a religious mission, which is Holy War (JIHAD) along the way of God,...

Iran Vows to Hit US 'Heavier in Future' August 19, 2007 TEHRAN -- The commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards yesterday threatened to deal heavier blows in future against the United States after Washington said it may label the force a terrorist group, according to news reports. Local press in Tehran quoted Revolutionary Guards leader General Yahya Rahim Safavi saying he could understand Washington's ire towards the group because of their recent successes against the US. The comments came as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a new verbal assault on Israel, denouncing it as the "flag of Satan" and saying...

BAGHDAD -- A top US general Sunday claimed that around 50 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards are inside Iraq and training Shiite extremists to launch attacks on US and Iraqi security forces. Major General Rick Lynch, commander of US forces in central Iraq, told reporters that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards unit, the Quds Force, have set up in central provinces such as Babylon, Karbala, and Najaf, as well as southern belts outside Baghdad. "The border [between Iran and Iraq] is porous and they [Quds Force members] come back and forth all the time ... they are physically...

Iraqi Kurdish officials expressed deepening concern yesterday at an upsurge in fierce clashes between Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian forces in the remote border area of north-east Iraq, where Tehran has recently deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards. Jabar Yawar, a deputy minister in the Kurdistan regional government, said four days of intermittent shelling by Iranian forces had hit mountain villages high up on the Iraqi side of the border, wounding two women, destroying livestock and property, and displacing about 1,000 people from their homes. Mr Yawer said there had also been intense fighting on the Iraqi border between Iranian forces and...

. 16 (UPI) — Three gunmen killed by U.S. troops in Iraq this week were members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, a U.S. military statement said in Baghdad. The U.S. Army statement said that in several anti-insurgency attacks this week, a total of nine gunmen were killed. However, in one raid in northeastern Baghdad targeting a leader of the Iranian Guards’ foreign fighters known as Al-Quds, three of his aides were killed by U.S. forces, Kuwait’s KUNA news agency reported.

Iranian Guards amass secret fortunes By Philip Sherwell, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:42am BST 19/08/2007 As the zealous enforcers of Iran's Islamic revolution, they are at pains to be seen living humbly, maintaining homes in the crumbling Soviet-style slums of downtown Teheran and driving modest, imported Korean cars. But for many commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, the force allegedly responsible for ordering attacks on British and US forces in Iraq, life is rather more luxurious than they want it to appear. Huge wealth: Sadeq Mahsouli Behind the façade of a simple, pious existence, they live in mansions in the exclusive...

U.S. General: Americans Tracking Iranian Forces August 19, 2007 Associated Press Dallas News BAGHDAD -- American forces are tracking about 50 members of an elite Iranian force who have crossed the border into southern Iraq to train Shiite militia fighters, a top U.S. general said Sunday. The French foreign minister, meanwhile, arrived in Baghdad on a groundbreaking visit after years of icy relations with the United States over Iraq. In Paris, the foreign ministry said Bernard Kouchner was in "Iraq to express a message of solidarity from France to the Iraqi people and to listen to representatives from all communities."...

The Bush administration has leaped toward war with Iran by, in essence, declaring war with the main branch of Iran's military, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which it plans to brand as a terrorist organization. A logical evolution of US President George W. Bush's ill-defined, boundless "war on terror", the White House's move is dangerous to the core, opening the way for open confrontation with Iran. This may begin in Iraq, where the IRGC is reportedly most active and, ironically, where the US and Iran have their largest common denominators. A New York Times editorial has dismissed this move...

WASHINGTON - An elite Iranian force likely to be designated a foreign terrorist organization by the Bush administration has close links to Iran's nuclear program and operates most of its surface-to-surface missiles, a leading analyst says. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, established during the 1979 Iranian revolution, has evolved into a powerful and influential organization that is believed to have custody over most or all of Iran's chemical, biological and radiological weapons, Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says in a study to be published in late September. The force has some 125,000 men, and...

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, Inc. By Mehdi Khalaji August 17, 2007 Understanding the impact of Washington's expected designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization requires knowing what role the Revolutionary Guards play in Iranian society. Apart from being a military force with naval, air, and ground components organized in parallel to the conventional Iranian military, the Revolutionary Guards are the spine of the current political structure and a major player in the Iranian economy. Backbone of the Regime In his 1988 last will and testament, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on the military forces "to...