Operations
Ministry of Intelligence and Security [MOIS]
Vezarat-e Ettela'at va Amniat-e Keshvar VEVAK
Iran is the most active sponsor of terrorism in the world. Since the inception of the Islamic state in 1979, the country has used terrorism as an integral part of its foreign and military policies. Iranian leaders view terrorism as a valid tool to accomplish their political objectives. Terrorist operations are reviewed and approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government, and the President of Iran is involved in the approval process of all major terrorist operations. Iranian-sponsored terrorism has had two major goals: Punishing opponents of the Islamic regime and expanding the Islamic movement throughout the Persian Gulf region.
Iranian-backed political violence has killed more than 1,000 people in over 200 terrorist attacks since the 1979 revolution, including some 80 assassinations of Iranian dissidents around the world. Major attacks include the suicide bombings of American and French military barracks in Beirut in 1983 which killed 299, a series of bombings in Paris in September 1986 which killed 12, attacks on the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 which killed 125, and the bombing that killed 19 Americans in Dhahran in June 1995.
The Ministry of Intelligence and Security is responsible for intelligence collection to support terrorist operations. The ministry is also responsible for liaison activities with supported terrorist groups and Islamic fundamentalist movements. VEVAK has also conducted terrorist operations in support of Iranian objectives. Most of these activities have focused on attacks on Iranian dissidents.
On 17 September 1992 Sadegh Sharaf-Kindi, leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), was gunned down along with 3 colleagues at the Mykonos, a Greek restaurant in Berlin. An Iranian and four Lebanese were soon arrested and charged, and, in March 1996, the German Federal Prosecutor issued an international arrest warrant for Iranian intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian for having ordered the killings. In final statements in late November 1996, German prosecutors charged Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and Iranian President Rafsanjani with approving the operation. Guilty verdicts for four of the accused were announced in April 1997.
Iranian leaders have consistently denied being able to revoke the fatwa against Salman Rushdie's life, in effect for nearly eight years, claiming that revocation is impossible because the author of the fatwa, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is deceased. There is no indication that Tehran is pressuring the 15 Khordad Foundation to withdraw the $2 million reward it is offering to anyone who will kill Rushdie. In September 1998, without repudiating the fatwa or the reward for Rushdie's life, the Iranian government distanced itself from the fatwa and the reward.
Mujahedin units supported by Iran have assisted in the training of selected Bosnian army elements since 1993. Although the numbers of Mujahedin operating in Bosnia remained a matter of speculation, most credible estimates indicate approximately 2,500 members were present by mid-1995.
Religious activity is monitored closely by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Adherents of recognized religious minorities are not required to register individually with the Government. However, their community, religious, and cultural organizations, as well as schools and public events, are monitored closely. Baha'is are not recognized by the Government as a legitimate religious community; they are considered heretics belonging to an outlawed political organization. Registration of Baha'is is a police function. Evangelical Christian groups are pressured by government authorities to compile and hand over membership lists for their congregations; however, evangelicals resisted this demand. Non-Muslim owners of grocery shops are required to indicate their religious affiliation on the fronts of their shops.
Of the unregistered parties within Iran, some such as the “Iran Nation Party” had been tolerated. However, in November 1998 the leader of that party, Dariush Forouhar, and his wife Parvaneh Forouhar were murdered by unknown assailants. Three senior members of INP were arrested at the outbreak of the street riots in July 1999, accused of provoking riots and using anti-Islamic slogans. Nine activists have reportedly been killed in the last decade.
Prominent political dissidents who disappeared in 1998 were Pirouz Davani in August and Javad Sharif in November. A spate of disappearances in late 1998 also included prominent writers and intellectuals, with Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh later found dead. Several senior figures of the leadership blamed the disappearances and murders on “foreign hands,” it was revealed that active-duty agents of the Ministry of Intelligence had carried out the killings. Minister of Intelligence Qorban Ali Dori-Najafabadi and several of his senior deputies resigned their posts following these revelations.
In June 1999 the Military Prosecutor's Office released an initial report on the investigation, identifying a cell from within the Ministry of Intelligence led by four “main agents” as responsible for the murders. The leader among the agents reportedly was a former Deputy Minister of Intelligence, Saeed Emami, who, the government stated, had committed suicide in prison by drinking a toxic hair removal solution several days prior to release of the report. The report also indicated that 23 persons had been arrested in association with the murders and that a further 33 were summoned for interrogation.
In the early part of the year 2000, the Government announced that 18 men would stand trial in connection with the killings. The trial began in late December in a military court. The proceedings were closed. However, news reports indicated that 15 defendants pleaded guilty during the opening stages of the trial. The identity of the defendants is still unknown, but former Minister of Intelligence Dori-Najafabadi had not been charged. Reform-oriented journalists and prominent cultural figures declared publicly their demands for a full accounting in the case and speculated that responsibility for ordering the murders lay at the highest level of the Government. Several citizens, including prominent investigative journalist Akbar Ganji, were arrested in connection with statements they have made about the case.
On 27 January 2001, fifteen intelligence officers were convicted for their involvement in the serial murders of liberal intellectuals in 1998/99 but the Supreme Court quashed the verdict in August 2001 and ordered a re-examination of the case. Press reports in late May 2002 indicate that two death sentences have been commuted and four unnamed individuals sentenced, but there has been no formal confirmation of this. Five of the interrogators have been jailed on charges of mis-treatment of the accused. The lawyer representing some of the victims, Naser Zarafshan, has also been given a prison sentence on charges of exposing state secrets.
Iran's Minister of Intelligence and Security Hojatoleslam Ali Yunesi reiterated, in a 31 August 2004 press conference, the official Iranian position that Lebanese Hizballah is a liberation movement. The U.S. State Department classifies Hizballah as a foreign terrorist organization. Responding to a question about U.S. claims that Iran supports terrorism, Yunesi said, "If they mean Iran's support for Hizballah, they should know that the Hizballah is a legal group which was created to fight Israel. It is a defense organization which was established in order to defend the Lebanese people and land." Yunesi added that this is why many states in the region support Hizballah. According to Yunesi, however, "We do not consider the Intifada [uprising] of the Palestinian people as a terrorist movement... It is the very right of the Palestinians people to defend themselves and all Muslim countries support them."
