IRGC & Hezbollah

Mehran Riazaty: Iran Analyst

On July 16, Mehr News reported that the Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Brigadier General Yahya Rahim Safavi, said Israel is not aware of Hezbollah’s capabilities. He added that that the Zionist regime can not survive without the support of the United States and Britain. Safavi noted that the Zionist regime will not be able to continue and expand the war in the region because the Israeli army has no information about the Hezbollah forces, and this is the most significant weakness of their strategies. READ MORE

Analyst Comment: On September 19, 2003 in an interview with Al Jazeera TV broadcast, Rafsanjani said “We really like Hezbollah in Lebanon and they are one of our good friends, there is no doubt that we are helping them, but they do everything independently and won’t get orders from us.” An interesting point is that if the Iranian authorities are not aware of Hezbollah’s arsenal power and are not also helping them, why on the same day Safavi in Iran and Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon made the same comment. On July 16, Safavi said “Israel is not aware of Hezbollah’s capabilities,” and Fars news agency reported Nasrallah said “Our enemy has no information about our capabilities, and Hezbollah has not shown its real power yet.”

It is obvious that Hezbollah of Lebanon and Iranian authorities have close cooperation. On July 20, Baztab news agency, run by Mohsen Rezaee, former head of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, reported that although so far the Israeli intelligent service “Mossad” and “CIA” have done everything to kill Hassan Nasrallah, but have not been successful. The Baztab continued the reason is that the Hezbollah of Lebanon’s intelligent service has copied its structure from Iran’s intelligent service. It seems that Hezbollah of Lebanon through faith in the Shiite education has become one of the best intelligent services in the world.

Mehran Riazaty: a former Iran analyst for the Central Command of the Coalition Forces in Baghdad.