Military Leader: Iran Sending Elite Fighters Into U.S., Europe

It’s been warned dozens of times on Global Geopolitics that hundreds, if not thousands of sleeper cells, are already in the United States.

For more, see: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE… to name a few.

The Iranian proxy Hezbollah is already near the southern U.S. border, a few miles from the Texas and training camps have been in Mexico (PDF file) for years already. Some Mexican drug cartels have even been converted from fake Catholics to Islamists. They’re all waiting for the green light, which may be given should war break out or even a strong economic downturn to send America off the cliff.

The threat is real. The Obama administration doesn’t care, and they’re aiding and abetting them. Moreover, everyday Americans are asleep at the wheel as the NFL and Kardashians are of higher priority.

What will it take for America to wake up? Hopefully not another 9/11 or worse, but sadly, that is the pattern.

 

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attends a graduation ceremony of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2014 / AP

IRGC commander: ‘IRGC will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon’

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s elite military force, is sending assets to infiltrate the United States and Europe at the direction of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to recent Farsi-language comments from an Iranian military leader.

The IRGC “will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” according to the Iranian military commander, who said that these forces would operate with the goal of bolstering Iran’s hardline regime and thwarting potential plots against the Islamic Republic.

Pentagon: Iran Continuing Work on Nuclear Systems

 Covert support for terrorism ‘unabated’

Iran is continuing to develop missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons despite an interim agreement on its nuclear programs, according to a Pentagon report.

“Although Iran has paused progress in some areas of its nuclear program and fulfilled its obligations under the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), it continues to develop technological capabilities that also could be applicable to nuclear weapons, including ballistic missile development,” a one-page unclassified summary of the report says.

A copy of the report was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The report was due to Congress in January but was not sent to the Armed Services Committee as required by law until this month. Analysts said the delay appeared designed to avoid upsetting Tehran and the nuclear talks.

Iran Expands Regional ‘Empire’ Ahead of Nuclear Deal

BEIRUT (Reuters) – With Iran moving closer to a deal with world powers to constrain its nuclear program in return for an end to sanctions, Arab analysts and leaders are focused more on how Tehran is working unconstrained to tighten its grip on Arab states, from Iraq to Lebanon, and Syria to Yemen.

The man behind what some see as an attempt to create a new Persian and Shi’ite “empire” on Arab land is Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the al-Quds brigade of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Since he emerged from the shadows last autumn, Soleimani seems to be omnipresent on the battlefields of the Middle East.

‘Iran tested sinking aircraft carriers using ballistic missiles’

Senior general claims that Tehran had worked to develop technology to hit moving targets at sea

Senior Iranian military general Hossein Salami said during a televised interview in early February that after years of research, Iran tested the capability of ballistic missiles to sink aircraft carriers almost a decade ago.

Salami, the Deputy Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said in the interview, which aired on state-run IRINN channel, that the testing “demonstrated that we were one step closer to destroying an aircraft carrier.”

Report: Syria builds new nuke site near Lebanon with help from Iran, N. Korea

LONDON — Syria was said to have renewed efforts to produce nuclear weapons and maintains a secret facility near Lebanon.

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported that President Bashar Assad has rebuilt Syria’s nuclear weapons infrastructure with help from Iran and North Korea.

Der Spiegel, citing Western intelligence assessments, said the Assad regime has received some 50 tons of uranium stored in a facility near Damascus and guarded by Hizbullah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Israel prepares for short, intense war to deliver ‘knock-out blow’ to Hizbullah

TEL AVIV — Israel’s military has been preparing for a brief and decisive war against Hizbullah, a report said.

The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies asserted that Israel’s military has invested heavily in new capabilities to ensure a brief war against Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Iran Army stages exercise near Iraq border

“This maneuver was among the most spectacular drills ever held by the Iranian Army in which 55 airborne, helicopter and other units of the ground forces took part,” Brig. Gen. Manoucher Kazemi, head of the Army’s Western Command, said.

…

Iranian state television showed footage from the exercise, said to have
taken place near the towns of Qaser Shirin and Sarpol Zahab. The footage showed Iranian troops parachuting from helicopters.

Iran sends 2 warships to Sudan 5 days after air strike on its weapons factory in Khartoum

The Teheran regime said two Iranian Navy vessels docked in Sudan on Oct. 29 as part of cooperation with the Arab League state. The vessels were identified as a corvette named Shahid Naqdi and the Kharq frigate.

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The report came five days after a reported air strike on a major weapons factory in Khartoum operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

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Irna said the two Iranian Navy vessels left Iran in September and sailed through the Red Sea. The agency did not elaborate.

“The commanders of the Iranian flotilla met with Sudanese navy
commanders during the berthing ceremony,” Irna said. “The flotilla had left the Bandar Abbas 1st Maritime Zone for the free and international waters in September to conduct the mission.”

Sudan has also accused the United States of complicity in the purported Israeli attack. On Oct. 29, the Sudanese daily Al Intiba said CIA director David Petraeus denied any U.S. role in the air strike on Yarmouk. The newspaper said Petraeus also appealed to Khartoum to protect American citizens.

Full article: Iran sends 2 warships to Sudan 5 days after air strike on its weapons factory in Khartoum (World Tribune)

Iran trumpets new naval warfare capabilities

And just to think, the Iranian navy during wartime will have thousands of speedboats taking off towards US Navy targets. The article also doesn’t take into account the thousands of missiles that could be launched upon naval vessels within the Persian Gulf. The stakes are quite high.

Iran’s speedboats can carry multiple kinds of anti-ship cruise missiles, and fire them while traveling at speeds higher than missile boats in any other navy in the world, an Iranian defense official claimed Monday.

Iranian leaders in Israel’s sights after calling for its destruction

This could also be considered a sign with the ongoing turmoil in Syria. Once the  highest ranking leaders start defecting or get picked off, Assad could decide to descend the entire Middle East into chaos.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was cheered by half a million demonstrators in Tehran shouting: Death to Israel! Death to America! when he declared Israel is a “cancerous tumor” that will soon be finished off in the new Middle East. He called “the Zionist regime’s existence an insult to all humanity.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said:  “The fake Zionist (regime) will disappear from the landscape of geography,”

And although both were severely rebuked by world leaders for their violent invective, it continued to pour out of Tehran in a comment by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force Chief, Brig. Gen. Amir Hajizadeh who said an Israeli attack would be welcome “as a pretext to get rid of Israel for good.”

Israel’s new Home Defense Minister Avi Dichter laid it out in plain language: While Syria, Lebanon and Gaza confront Israel with a strategic threat, Iran imperils our very existence.”

Certain Western intelligence sources were reminded of a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 2006 when he quoted a Holocaust survivor as saying:  “My main lesson from the Holocaust is that if someone tells you he is going to exterminate you, believe him. And I add to that. Believe him and stop him!”

Six years later, those sources now suggest, after America’s top soldier Gen. Martin Dempsey offered the opinion that Israel can no longer destroy Iran’s nuclear weapon capacity – only delay it , that Netanyahu may be willing to go further: Not only to stop them, but kill them.

They are quietly using the term “decapitation.”

They point to the Israeli Mossad’s long record of targeted covert operations for dealing with past and would-be annihilators: In the fifties, the Mossad captured the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in Operational Finale.

In the seventies, Golda Meir ordered Operation Wrath of God to hunt down and pick off one by one the Palestinian Black September murderers of 11 Israeli sportsmen at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

In February 2008, Iran’s senior terrorist operations commander, Hizballah’s Imad Mughniyeh, was liquidated in Damascus, so ending a bloody career of assassinations, terrorism and abductions against US and other Western targets as well as Israel.

Hizballah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah knows the score: He has spent six years hunkered down in a fortified bunker, taking care never to  broadcast his inflammatory speeches calling for Israel’s destruction live, only by video.

It cannot be ruled out that this point, Israel may decide to disable Iran’s nuclear program by going for its leaders.

Full article: Iranian leaders in Israel’s sights after calling for its destruction (DEBKAfile)

Russian, Iranian advisors spotted in Syria by opposition

The Syrian opposition has identified senior Iranian and Russian officers
assigned to help the Assad regime. The Free Syrian Army said Iran and Russia
were helping the Syrian Army and security forces with tactics, technology
and operational planning.

“We warn all the snakes to go back to their dens whether it is Russia,
Iran and Iraq or Lebanon,” FSA said in a statement on Aug. 9.

…

The United States has asserted that Moscow was sending senior officers and other personnel to advise the Assad regime. U.S. officials said Russian advisers were maintaining Syria’s air defense network, which in June shot down a Turkish Air Force F-4 fighter-jet.

FSA has also abducted scores of Iranians later identified as members of
the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. On Aug. 8, Iranian Foreign
Minister Ali Akbar Salehi acknowledged that former IRGC officers had been
captured by Sunni rebels.

Full article: Russian, Iranian advisors spotted in Syria by opposition (World Tribune)

Iran to the rescue: Thousands of special ops troops said arriving in Syria

NICOSIA — Iran was said to have poured thousands of elite troops
into Syria.

The Syrian opposition said thousands of members of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps have arrived in Syria. Opposition sources said the Iranian troops came from special operations units, with many of them skilled in sniper and explosives.

…

Al Oqueidi, chairman of the rebel military council in Aleppo, said the
Iranians were meant to replace the tens of thousands of Sunni who deserted the Syrian Army. He said at least 3,000 of the IRGC troops were trained in sniper missions.

…

The Iranians were said to have been participating in Assad military
campaigns in both Aleppo and Damascus. In Aleppo, an estimated 20,000 Syrian Army troops were awaiting orders to invade the nation’s business capital and largest city.

…

The military has reported that it regained control over the Damascus
area. In an unusual move, the Army led a tour for journalists of former
rebel positions on Aug. 3.

“We have cleansed all the districts of Damascus, from Al Midan to Mazeh,
from Al Hajar Al Aswad to Qadam to Tadamun,” a Syrian Army officer said.

The Free Syrian Army said many of the IRGC personnel in Syria were in
civilian clothes. FSA said it captured 48 IRGC officers outside Damascus
International Airport disguised as pilgrims and part of a 150-man
reconnaissance unit.

“During the investigation, we found that some of them were officers of
IRGC,” an FSA officer said in a video statement. “They were on a
reconnaissance mission in Damascus.”

Full article: Iran to the rescue: Thousands of special ops troops said arriving in Syria (World Tribune)

The Unholy Union of ALBA and Hezbollah

ALBA professes commitment to regional economic integration. It promises easy money to beleaguered nations, and is viewed as an easy alternative to the bureaucracy encumbering the World Bank.

A closer look, however, reveals it to be a bloc devoted above all to anti-Americanism, and comprised of members who have rigged elections to avoid losing power.

Moreover, membership in alba brings countries into common cause with the world’s most destabilizing nations and most malicious terrorist groups. The organization has forged ties with Middle Eastern terrorists that could pose a serious threat not only to Latin American countries, but also to the U.S. and Canada.

The man most responsible for alba’s spread is Hugo Chávez. His checkbook has wide ideological and cultural appeal in Latin America and the Caribbean. Chávez gave nearly $200 million to Manuel Zelaya’s government in Honduras to help his illegal attempt at re-election. Every year, he gives Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega around $500 million in “free” money to prop up his dictatorship.

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Under alba’s umbrella, leading politicians have become the Caribbean’s and Latin America’s new breeders of crime. And since politicians at the highest levels are in on the action, reporting on alba-Hezbollah ties is rare. But some reports fight their way through the conspiratorial haze.

In August of 2008, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that an unnamed Western official had said Venezuela was providing Iran-backed Hezbollah with a base of operations. The official warned that Hezbollah is able to move “people and things” into Latin America thanks to the warm Iran-Venezuela relationship. He said this link “preserves the capability of Hezbollah and the [Islamic] Revolutionary Guard [Corps] to mount attacks inside Latin America,” and added “It’s becoming a strategic partnership.”

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“There is a Chávez terror network on America’s doorstep,” says Rebecca Theodore, senior editor of Caribbean News Now.

…

Theodore said the danger of terrorists entering the U.S. via Latin America and the Caribbean is imminent. “It won’t be long before Iranian terrorists with Venezuelan and Dominican passports stand in line and show their documents to U.S. border agents as well,” she said.

The thickening alliance between anti-U.S. alba nations and West-hating terrorist groups like Hezbollah casts dark shadows across both Americas. It reveals that the Middle Eastern extremists who oppose the U.S. are becoming better connected, more powerful, and closer to America’s borders. It also reveals that U.S. influence is rapidly waning in a region it relies on heavily for industrial cooperation.

Full article: The Unholy Union of ALBA and Hezbollah (The Trumpet)

Iran: Ayatollah Khamenei’s Advances Toward The Artesh – Analysis

To truly appreciate the political standing of Iran’s regular armed forces in today’s Islamic Republic, the key is to take into account the impact of the ongoing and unparalleled internal feud in the top ranks of the regime. The feud, pitching the factions of Supreme Leader Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamenei and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad against one another in a bitter contest for power, has turned the Artesh into an inescapable entity that neither faction can afford to ignore. Given, however, that Ayatollah Khamenei is the ultimate Commander-in-Chief in Iran’s constitutional setup, he appears to be succeeding in his attempts to shape the Artesh with the aim of further consolidating his grip on power in Iran.

As Khamenei has set out to appeal to Artesh commanders, as well as the rank-and-file, two developments are evident. First, the Artesh is increasingly idealized by the state-controlled media. This is a noticeable trend because the Islamist regime has largely sought to ignore or sideline the regular armed forces in the course of the 32-year history of the Islamic Republic. Instead, the Artesh is now periodically put in the front position when the regime in Tehran seeks to brandish its self-declared military capabilities. In contrast, up until recently the Artesh was rarely if ever given the chance to outshine the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its politically-favored military counterweight.

Second, there are now a growing number of joint Artesh-IRGC military exercises and operations. This development in particular suggests that Khamenei’s efforts to bring the Artesh under his tutelage might go beyond merely rhetoric and public relations campaigns at the hands of state-run media.

Full article: Iran: Ayatollah Khamenei’s Advances Toward The Artesh – Analysis (Eurasia Review)