Near the intersection of Nastaran Alley and Jaleh Street in the affluent Salarieh district of Qom, the deeply religious Yekta family once lived. Haj Abbas, the patriarch, was a well-known merchant in the Qom bazaar. The father of Mohammadhossein (born November 1967), another son, and several daughters, he moved his family to Salarieh in the mid-1980s as the neighborhood was undergoing a massive transformation.

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had purchased much of the undeveloped land in Salarieh from Qom’s primary religious endowment trusteeship, or toliyat, in the 1970s. After the 1979 revolution, he started a construction company and built a couple hundred upscale residences in the area. Rafsanjani went on to gift many of these to members of the emerging power elite to develop and cement his political-religious network in the new Islamic Republic, even as others bought in to enjoy, and perhaps benefit from, the neighborhood’s blossoming cachet.

From the family of Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, head of Iran’s judiciary for most of the 1990s, to members of the Assembly of Experts and Guardian Council, to the family of Seyed Mehdi Hashemi, one of the founders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who was later executed for leaking information about the Iran-Contra affair, many powerful figures lived in the district. Brigadier General Mohammad Saeed Izadi, commander of the Palestine branch of the IRGC’s Quds Force, responsible for arming and training Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members, was killed in his Salarieh home by Israeli missiles during the 12-day war in 2025. Families tied to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq—from the family of Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi to that of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim—lived alongside prosperous, devout merchants like Haj Abbas Yekta. (To distinguish the family’s generations-old, rather common surname of Hosseini, Yekta—”unique” or “peerless”—was at some point appended to it and in time became primary.)

Even after the toliyat sold much of the area to Rafsanjani, it retained a sprawling garden bordered to the south by Yasaman Street, one block over from Jaleh, where Qom’s only amusement park was built, a major attraction for people from around the city. In 1984, at the direction of Supreme Leader Khomeini, Iran’s largest women’s seminary was established, occupying about half of the garden’s footprint, and the amusement park shut down.

Among Salarieh’s most distinctive features, every street was named after a flower (nastaran, wild rose; yasaman, jasmine) or other garden motif (jaleh, morning dew). Later, the streets were officially renamed for martyrs of the Iran-Iraq War, but the new appellations were ignored by residents, who continued to use the traditional flower names. The entire neighborhood was filled with fragrant acacia and jasmine trees.

Despite the elegant villas and charming atmosphere, most residents did not resemble the affluent classes of other major cities in their visual appearance. Where in tony north Tehran, the residents—including the families of wealthy IRGC commanders—looked modern and stylish, the primarily religious beneficiaries of the revolution’s patronage system in Salarieh appeared much more traditional: men with beards wearing black-and-white clothing, women in black chadors.

Unlike Haj Abbas, who maintained a low profile in the neighborhood, on the far side of the city from the bazaar that consumed his attention, his son Mohammadhossein in the early 1990s began to play a prominent role in the district’s religious and political events. Soon earning the same honorific by which his father was long known, Haj Hossein cut an intimidating figure at first glance: stern-faced, with a glass eye—he had lost his right eye while serving as an IRGC officer in the Iran-Iraq War—and a thick black beard. But in fact he was warm, approachable, and, as people from working-class neighborhoods might say, down to earth (khaki) and honorable (looti maslak). He spoke in the slang of street toughs and loved joking around. Only when angered did he become truly frightening.

Mohammadhossein eventually became so renowned that Haj Abbas himself was identified through his son’s reputation. When the patriarch died in January 2023, around the age of 80, media outlets were flooded with condolences from political and military officials addressed not to him, but to his son, Haj Hossein Yekta.

Cultivating loyalty

The geographic enclave of Salarieh is linked to three ideological institutions of the Islamic Republic: the Meysam Cultural Center, which operates out of the neighborhood’s Al-Nabi Mosque; Masoumiyeh Seminary, about a mile and a half northeast, whose entire leadership for years lived in Salarieh, including its principal, the Al-Nabi imam; and, just steps from the seminary, the Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, founded by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi. Key figures from the institute, among them Morteza Agha-Tehrani—who currently presides over the Iranian parliament’s Cultural Commission—were frequent participants in the gatherings at the Meysam Center.

Within this set of institutions, a circle of influential figures play various roles in developing and executing communications strategies to maintain the regime’s popular base, ensure it is continually replenished with youthful recruits, and mobilize them on demand to display their support for the regime—and sometimes more aggressive actions. Agha-Tehrani and Mehdi Aboutalebi, who like Hossein Yekta reached adulthood in Salarieh, are among the “producers of meaning,” developing ideological frameworks and maxims, then disseminating them in media appearances and at religious gatherings. Meanwhile, figures in the leadership circle of the Meysam Center such as Abbas Mohsen and Mojtaba Vafi are primarily responsible for direct outreach to prospective supporters and their subsequent training and mobilization. 

Hossein Yekta has played multiple roles. He spent years working out of the Meysam Center to recruit and indoctrinate teenagers and young adults, becoming known especially as a teller of stories about the war against Iraq, drawing on his own extensive combat experiences. With the passage of time, his influence expanded well beyond the center, as he gradually emerged as a leading institutional administrator and strategist in his own right. Whatever its members’ specific roles, the circle’s collective aim, in Yekta’s words, is to “build human beings for the New Islamic Civilization.”

Almost this entire network, whose members met as young neighbors in Salarieh, came of age attending events at the Meysam Center. According to one local resident, “the center’s function was patron cultivation—transforming the wealthy religious youth of the neighborhood into devoted followers of the Supreme Leader and promoters of the ruling ideology.” They pursued their clerical studies at Masoumiyeh Seminary—some, like Hossein Yekta, briefly; others, such as Mehdi Aboutalebi, more comprehensively. They are ultimately of one mind in promoting an unswerving worldview: loyalty to the Supreme Leader and dedication to revolutionary activism.

Claiming the mantle of a discourse centered on alleviating hardship, these figures, almost all from backgrounds of relative privilege, speak repeatedly of “saving the deprived.” Yet they place far less emphasis on the economic empowerment of lower-income groups than on their ideological and identity-based organization. Their so-called jihadi work is increasingly directed at recruiting ardent followers into the burgeoning jan-fada movement, the Islamic Republic’s “devotees unto death,” a process that involves the crucial step of pledging allegiance to the doctrine of Velaayat-e Faghih (guardianship of the Islamic jurist—the principle by which the Supreme Leader exercises absolute authority.) 

War stories and “Travelers of Light” 

For most of the 1980s and early 1990s, Iran’s leading storyteller—or, in the Persian idiom, narrator (ravi)—of the war with Iraq was documentary filmmaker Morteza Avini. Across more than 80 films made during the war and its aftermath, he took his camera to communities near the front lines, focusing on how ordinary citizens participated in and were affected by the conflict. For years, his films aired every Friday night on Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. After Avini’s death in 1993, members of the Meysam Center engaged in intensive discussions about his legacy. To fill the void of inspirational war narrator, a quiet competition developed among the center’s members, including Haj Hossein Yekta. As an officer in the IRGC’s Habib Battalion, he was a veteran of many of the war’s fiercest battles, including Valfajr 3, 4, and 8, Operation Badr, and Karbala 1, 4, and 5. After the war, he remained a core member of the Habib Battalion network, which evolved into a coterie bringing together some of the Islamic Republic’s most hardline intelligence and security figures around Mojtaba Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s most influential son and eventual (if perhaps only nominal) successor as Supreme Leader. Yekta ultimately won recognition as Avini’s successor, though he employed a methodology very different from the filmmaker’s.

The campaign he led tasked school administrators and guidance counselors around the country with selecting religiously devoted students and sending them to cultural-military camps along the Iran-Iraq border, in the operational zones of the “Sacred Defense.” Known as Rahian-e Noor (Travelers of Light), these student excursions, which might last anywhere from two to ten days, have been described by critics as meant primarily for ideological indoctrination. Whether voluntarily or under pressure, thousands of teenagers and young adults were sent to listen to Haj Hossein recount war stories, including vivid tales of grassroots resistance and martyrdom.

Over the course of more than 20 years leading the Rahian-e Noor camps, Hossein Yekta’s war narratives earned him recognition among religious youth and Basij militia members who would also visit the camps to hear his presentations. But the regime’s interest in cultivating loyalists willing to give their time at a moment’s notice to pro-regime rallies and marches and even carry out acts of repression required deeper recruitment—particularly from lower social strata—and Yekta’s role evolved to provide it.

A new society

For two decades, Iran’s leading nongovernmental aid group addressing the needs of marginalized communities was the independent Imam Ali Society. Founded by university students in 1999, the group—formally, the Imam Ali Popular Students’ Relief Society—focused on empowering vulnerable children, youth struggling with addiction, and those affected by poverty and violence. In 2010, it achieved special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council, and a decade later it was operating more than 40 facilities in disadvantaged areas across Iran, supported by more than 10,000 volunteers. 

According to Sharmin Meymandinejad, one of the Imam Ali Society’s founders, officials in the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus tried to bring the organization under ideological control after it received UN recognition—even as they praised it publicly. When those co-optation efforts failed, the security forces moved in 2017 to establish a parallel structure: the Imam Reza Society, with Haj Hossein Yekta as its public face. The following year, Yekta’s war narratives were collected and published as Red Squares, further boosting his reputation; the collection has been reprinted 11 times. By this point, he was also a member of the central council of the Ammar Headquarters, an internal propaganda think tank, and a senior commander of the IRGC’s internal plainclothes operations.

The Imam Reza Society initially presented itself as a humanitarian group providing relief to earthquake and flood victims. Maintaining that it received no funding from any government or state-affiliated institution, the society announced that it was created to step in where the government and traditional charities had been unable to solve problems and try to fill the gaps. 

As the Imam Ali Society continued to defend its independence, on June 21, 2020, IRGC operatives shut down its Tehran headquarters, confiscated all of its computers, phones, and archives, and arrested Meymandinejad and two colleagues. The accusations against the trio, who were held incommunicado for 48 hours, involved transgressions against national security and insults to the country’s religious leaders. Meymandinejad’s colleagues were released on bail following two months’ imprisonment.

Meymandinejad, who later left Iran after he was incarcerated for four months under brutal conditions, told Resanegar, Tehran Bureau’s economic unit: “In Rahian-e Noor, they couldn’t recruit soldiers or create ‘fire-at-will’ forces. That program mostly drew from the regime’s base of middle-class ideological supporters. But with the Imam Reza network, they went after marginalized children—kids who, in my experience, were sometimes susceptible to [committing] violence and repression.”

Human rights documentation suggests that the Islamic Republic systematically draws from lower-income and marginalized populations in its repression apparatus. While not officially declared policy, this pattern is visible in institutional design, socioeconomic incentives, and security planning. The Imam Reza Society appears to be part of this structure.

The society today is involved in an expansive range of activities, many of which give it access to the demographic Meymandinejad describes. It provides vocational training and life-skills education for young people, organizes local markets where farmers and other small producers can sell directly to consumers, distributes free charitable meals (nazri), campaigns for the release of prisoners, and participates in school construction and flood-control projects.

At the same time, it also engages in overtly political and ideological functions. The society has marshalled teenagers to participate in public pledges of allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei, organized pro-government street rallies, and arranged pilgrimages to Shiite holy sites.

While Hossein Yekta is widely believed to be the society’s founder, Meymandinejad claims that it was actually established by a former Imam Ali Society member who was later revealed to have been an infiltrator planted by the Revolutionary Guards. In his view, organizations like the Imam Reza Society “don’t have a public audience—they serve the state. Security structures cannot organically attract volunteers; they must infiltrate existing social networks.”

Identity-based mobilization

In political economy studies, the use of force combined with the allocation of resources—money, jobs, privileges—to maintain political control is known as the “economy of repression.” Its inputs include official defense and intelligence budgets, unregulated revenues from institutions tied to the Supreme Leader’s office, and informal income streams such as rents and smuggling—areas where entities like the IRGC and Bonyad Mostazafan (BM) play key roles.

Lower-income populations are often more easily drawn into such systems due to economic incentives, access to patronage networks, and susceptibility to identity-based mobilization. The Islamic Republic has long structured recruitment around this dynamic, from the Basij to newer entities like the Imam Reza Society.

In effect, the system transforms poverty into loyalty and a capacity for repression. Not all participants come from disadvantaged backgrounds—ideology also plays a role—but economic leverage remains central.

Budget transparency is limited, making it difficult to arrive at precise figures. In 2023, Deutsche Welle estimated the cost of Iran’s repression apparatus at 557 billion tomans (then approximately $11.2 million USD) per day, based on official budgets for the IRGC, intelligence ministry, and security police. This figure does not include many off-budget funding streams. For example, around the same time he became head of the new Imam Reza Society, Hossein Yekta was also appointed by Ebrahim Raisi—Iran’s future president—to launch another charitable body, the Karamat Foundation, under the aegis of Astan Quds Razavi, one of the Islamic Republic’s wealthiest religious-finanical entities.

With a putatively humanitarian mission similar to that of the Imam Reza Society, the Karamat Foundation’s operations include a comprehensive counseling center, a women and family affairs center, the Razavi volunteer service network and service centers, the Pilgrim Endowment Institute, and a sports and physical education institute. While these projects are ostensibly focused on assisting disadvantaged communities, critics argue that their ultimate objective, again like that of the Imam Reza Society, is to identify vulnerable Iranians, organize them into structured networks, and transform them into dependable supporters of the regime, ready for mobilization.

Meymandinejad argues that recruitment into such networks builds on years of ideological conditioning among poor youth: “They first make children anti-social, because someone raised that way can more easily commit violence. They invest heavily in shaping them.” He traces such efforts in recent years to the IRGC’s recruitment of Afghan migrant children as young as 14, living in Iran mostly without legal residency, to fight the Islamic Republic’s proxy war in Syria. Further back, he points to the regime’s formative era, when the use of child soldiers in the Sacred Defense against Iraq became normalized.

Repression as ritual

On January 8, 2026, amid mass protests against the regime, Hossein Yekta released a video online in which he openly threatened violence, urging Basij forces to take action and warning families not to complain if their children were harmed. The video was picked up by state television and broadcast repeatedly, gaining widespread attention and leading to Yekta’s sanctioning by the EU and multiple European countries. In the next 48 hours alone, thousands of Iranians were killed by regime forces and followers—IRGC, Basij, eager jan-fada, all freed to “fire at will.”

More recently, during the months-long fraught ceasefire with the United States and Israel, the signals that Yekta’s Imam Reza Society serves as a mobilization arm for repression have grown louder as well. The society has organized a series of mass street events in which jan-fada occupy and overwhelm public space in a way meant to intimidate any observers opposed to the regime. The participation of children and teenagers in a rally pledging allegiance to the Supreme Leader on April 29 underscored that the Imam Reza network’s true commitment is to state security goals rather than grassroots charity.

The Imam Reza Society and Karamat Foundation, under Hossein Yekta, are vital exponents of the Islamic Republic’s broader economy of repression. Through training, jobs, privileges, and tangible goods, the state cultivates a loyal force capable of suppressing protests, enforcing social surveillance, and on occasion, wreaking vengeance.

For participants from affluent backgrounds, this system is not merely ideological—it is also economic. It offers access to contacts, contracts, and institutional power. Dismantling such a system is beyond difficult, as it requires replacing the entire structure of incentives that sustain it. And as long as this “economy of repression” persists, meaningful change will remain elusive.

Reflecting on the jan-fada movement and Hossein Yekta’s role in organizing and galvanizing it, Sharmin Meymandinejad argues that the regime supporters who storm demonstrations chanting “Heydar, Heydar” have already been invested with a sense of epic heroism, casting them as protagonists in a historic, almost mythic struggle. Once convinced that they alone represent righteousness, they are able to carry out the most extreme violence with remarkable ease. He puts it starkly: “They have turned repression into ritual. Ritual is powerful—it mobilizes emotion. Where we gave poor families bags of rice, they deliver black body bags.”

The post The Recruiter: Haj Hossein Yekta appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

A grand, three-day funeral ceremony for the former Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic is planned for the middle of Muharram, first month of the Islamic lunar calendar (beginning June 16 this year), with foreign dignitaries joining domestic devotees in attendance. Additional ceremonies will follow in the holy city of Qom and finally in Mashhad, where the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be buried at the Imam Reza Shrine.

Preparations for the events are being led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), sending a clear message to both the Iranian people and the world at large. “It is not just about planning a funeral,” an economist affiliated with the University of Tehran’s Institute for Economic Studies and Research told Resanegar, Tehran Bureau’s economic unit. “This ceremony provides a mechanism for reinforcing the IRGC’s position of power.”

After engineering Mojtaba Khamanei’s succession to the post of Supreme Leader, demonstrating its readiness to extract fees from ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, and solidifying its control over foreign policy, the IRGC is emerging from the war with the United States and Israel possessed of greater capacity than ever to direct Iran’s fortunes. 

A few months ago, the corps was facing open criticism for its opaque, yet immense role in Iran’s economy, fueled by years of discontent—not least among its rivals within the regime. Emboldened by the war and Ali Khamenei’s sudden demise, the IRGC has altered the equation and positioned itself to play a more visible role in both business and political decision-making. Alongside its assertion of control over the Khamenei commemorations, another clear sign is the shift in the leadership of Iran’s international negotiating team. Before the war, such delegations were headed by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi; the current negotiations with the Trump administration, however, are being led by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. His position as Majles speaker is less relevant than the fact that he served for two decades in the Guards, ascending to the position of commander of the IRGC Air Force.

Complementing its accumulation of political power and vast network of companies and often cloaked holdings, the IRGC also enjoys special dispensation to feast from the nation’s coffers. While 20 percent of oil revenues are allocated directly to the armed forces, the Guards also have privileged access to the National Development Fund, a sovereign wealth fund created by order of Ali Khamenei and financed by Iran’s oil revenues—likewise 20 percent of the total under the 2026–27 Majles budget. This arrangement has further entrenched the security establishment’s ability to exploit the country’s most important source of wealth.

The IRGC’s 47-year rise to dominance has not gone unchallenged. During the 2010s, in particular, as the Guards’ control over national security policy tightened and its sprawling business and financial structures encompassed an ever larger part of the Iranian economy, multiple figures in the regime sought to check its power—including more than one who had played important parts in its expansion.

“Neither sound economics nor privatization”

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office as the Islamic Republic’s sixth president in August 2005, he was known to have long been closely aligned with the IRGC—to the extent that there were widespread, though erroneous, reports that he had been a member. He launched a sweeping, so-called privatization campaign among whose greatest beneficiaries was Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, the Guards’ massive engineering firm. In 2006 alone, Khatam al-Anbiya landed over $7 billion in contracts across sectors from transportation to oil and gas. As a rift grew between the Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad during his second term as president, he also began to rebuke the IRGC, in particular for its shadowy economic activities. At a government conference in July 2011, he referred to powerful actors surreptitiously moving goods through ports while avoiding customs supervision as the regime’s “smuggler brothers“—a reference to the Guards so thinly veiled that IRGC commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari felt compelled to reject the allegations. 

Not unlike Ahmadinejad, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who served as president for eight years in the aftermath of the war with Iraq and first opened the door for the Guards’ involvement in economic activities, reportedly came to regret it. When he took office in August 1989, the IRGC was still a relatively new institution. Many of its members were young, highly motivated cadres who, during the war, had been involved not only in combat operations but also in extensive engineering, logistical, and reconstruction work, developing impressive operational capabilities. Rafsanjani thus gave the Guards a lead position in rebuilding the country’s war-damaged infrastructure. As a result of this decision, the IRGC would gradually transform into a massive state-backed contractor and, over time, a formidable competitor—and obstacle—to the private sector. According to an account published by the Saham News website, in an April 2013 meeting with a group of associates encouraging him to run again for the presidency, he rued how the Guards had gone far beyond the rebuilding mission he gave them and said that “now the IRGC has the economy, foreign and domestic policy in its grip and is not satisfied with anything less than the entire country.”

The following year, in December 2014, Ahmadinejad’s successor, Hassan Rouhani, then in office for four months, implicitly criticized the transfer of state-owned companies to the IRGC while addressing an anti-corruption conference attended by the heads of all three branches of government, saying, “If you gather intelligence, guns, money, capital, websites, newspapers, and news agencies all in one place, it would even corrupt Abu Dharr and Salman” (companions of the Prophet Muhammad renowned for their probity). While many observers regarded this as an obvious reference to the corps, IRGC chief Jafari insisted that “the president’s relationship with the Revolutionary Guards is very good” and that Rouhani’s remarks were not directed at them.

In October 2015, the Islamic Republic agreed to a nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) that left in place broad US sanctions against the IRGC and many of its affiliated business entities—suggesting that the larger the Guards’ role in the national economy, the more vulnerable that economy would continue to be. Rouhani, having won a second term in office in the May 2017 elections, now launched a concerted political effort to rein in the Guards’ economic sway. This campaign culminated in a widely reported speech referencing Ahmadinejad’s privatization campaign to an iftar banquet on June 22, 2017, that drew an explosive reaction. “We handed part of the economy from a civilian government to a government with guns; this is neither sound economics nor privatization,” the president declared. This time the Guards’ response was fierce. Jafari publicly castigated Rouhani, charging that “a government without a gun is humiliated and ultimately forced to surrender.” In a meeting the following month, Jafari, Qasem Soleimani, and other senior IRGC leaders directly excoriated the president. Aerospace Force commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh reported that they told Rouhani, “If you say these things, it will not be tolerated. You object every day. Defending the revolution, and the nation, and the system, and the Leadership, is our red line. Do not assume you’ll always be able to say these things, and we’ll be silent.”

Rouhani evidently continued his campaign more quietly. In January 2018, just a few weeks after massive protests had shaken the Islamic Republic, his defense minister, Amir Hatami, announced that the Supreme Leader had issued a directive to the General Staff of the Armed Forces ordering the divestiture of non-military business enterprises. IRGC commanders dismissed the announcement, asserting that all of their business dealings were military related, and Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018 weakened Rouhani’s position to the point that he was effectively sidelined for most of his second term. Nonetheless, in October 2018 the IRGC’s Sepah Cooperative Foundation divested its shares in the Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) and Mobile Communications Company of Iran (MCI; also known as Hamrah-e Aval). Since then, there has been little to indicate that anyone in the regime cared to expend political capital trying to reel back the Guards’ economic activities—until early this year, when an old idea was revived and repurposed with exactly that aim.

The merger idea

On the afternoon of March 22, 1989, Tehran’s northern Jamaran neighborhood received a frequent visitor, one who arrived this time with a particularly important agenda. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had served as commander-in-chief during the final months of the Iran-Iraq War, arrived at the residence of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, carrying a folder of documents laying out a consequential proposal.

Few enjoyed the trust of the leader of the Islamic Republic as Rafsanjani did. As he later described in his memoirs, he raised the issue of the dual structure of Iran’s armed forces and the high costs associated with maintaining parallel organizations and overlapping military units, arguing for the merger of the IRGC and the Artesh, Iran’s regular military. The Guards had been officially founded on May 5, 1979, per a Khomeini decree, to “fulfill the momentous task of the Islamic revolution”—an ideological enforcement mission he did not trust to the Artesh, whose officer corps was a legacy of the Shah. Iraq invaded a year and a half later, and the IRGC became essential to Iran’s defense.

Khomeini accepted the proposal in principle but was concerned that merging the Guards and the Artesh would provoke resentment among their personnel and trigger clashes between the two forces. He stated that while he did not object to the idea of the merger, the timing was not right.

Khomeini’s lack of opposition to the concept was enough for Rafsanjani to pursue it by establishing a merger committee headed by Abdollah Nouri, who would later serve as interior minister under both Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. Khomeini did not live long enough to see its outcome. He died on June 4, 1989, just two months after the meeting in Jamaran, and—thanks to a selection process manipulated by Rafsanjani—was succeeded by Ali Khamenei, then in his eighth year as Iran’s president.

Unlike Ayatollah Khomeini, who had no military background and largely entrusted national security affairs to Rafsanjani, Khamenei began his career in the newly established Islamic Republic as deputy minister of defense and went on to serve as acting commander of the IRGC. He resigned from that position in February 1980 to run in the first parliamentary elections under the new regime, ultimately winning a seat and becoming chairman of the Majles’s Defense Committee.

His military background and maintenance of close ties with IRGC commanders led the new Supreme Leader to take a continued personal interest in national security matters. In his first days after taking office, he ordered the dissolution of the IRGC-Artesh merger committee and declared the anticipated union unnecessary, tasking the General Staff of the Armed Forces with establishing a clear division of everyday responsibilities and strategic missions between the two institutions.

During Ali Khamenei’s tenure as Supreme Leader, the IRGC’s authority and scope of responsibilities steadily grew—first on now President Rafsanjani’s initiative, later owing to the Supreme Leader himself, who saw the Guards as his essential power base against the reform movement after Khatami became president. Among the earliest examples was the Guards’ consolidation and expansion of the Basij militia, and then its internal deployment against Iranian citizens during the Mashhad riots of 1992 and Qazvin unrest of 1994. The IRGC’s political presence grew as well. As the share of Majles seats won by clerics dwindled from a high of 55 percent in 1984 to less than 15 percent in the early 2000s, former Guards began to enter the legislature in growing numbers—first slowly, then with a rush in 2004 when many reformist incumbents were disqualified. With greater numbers came greater influence: by 2020, former IRGC or Basij members comprised a majority of the parliament’s presidium and held at least 16 committee chairs or similarly powerful positions. The wall between Guard and government service is thin at best, and many of these legislators will return to active duty as soon as they exit the formal political scene.

Under Khamenei and Rafsanjani, the IRGC was also granted a much broader role in economic affairs. Its budget expanded significantly, and it inaugurated a vast network of subsidiary businesses, including the Khatam al-Anbiya conglomerate—which itself owns at least a half-dozen engineering subsidiaries and a controlling stake in the country’s largest shipbuilding company, among many other interests—and an array of financial and credit institutions. Through Khamenei and Rafsanjani’s support of the Guards’ economic activities, the IRGC grew into a pillar of Iran’s shadow economy.

“Costs borne by the public” 

After Rafsanjani’s failed bid in 1989, there is no evidence that an Artesh-IRGC merger received serious consideration in regime circles for the next three-and-a-half decades. That changed—though for reasons much different than organizational efficiency—after January 28, 2026, when the European Union placed the IRGC on its terror list, significantly expanding a global sanctions program that targets the corps’ assets and revenue streams. Due to the IRGC’s outsized role in the shadow economy, the international pressure threatened Iran’s economic system as a whole.

Just nine days after the EU decision, Jomhouri-e Eslami newspaper—founded as the mouthpiece for the Islamic Republic Party, Iran’s sole ruling party under Khomeini, and whose views generally echo those of the regime’s conservative clerical core—published a front-page editorial championing “cohesion” and “unity, efficiency, and strength in the country’s defense structure.” Merging the IRGC and the Artesh was the only solution to save Iran’s economy, according to the editorial—an argument with special significance given that Ali Khamenei had been the paper’s license holder since its founding in 1979, according to the current managing editor.

Explicitly invoking Rafsanjani’s decades-old effort to merge the Guards and Artesh and Khomeini’s lack of objection to the idea, the newspaper blamed a systemic “misalignment of institutional roles“ for a “significant part of our problems today, from the economy to foreign policy.” It described the IRGC as entering “fields for which it was neither designed, nor equipped to handle the consequences,” and in response advocated “a rational consolidation of power and the return of each institution to its defined legal mandate.” 

“Such a return to the logic of law and institutional division of labor could both facilitate the containment of a formidable enemy and reduce the accumulated costs borne by the public,” the editorial stated.

Jomhouri-e Eslami’s advocacy of an Artesh-IRGC merger might have served as a prelude to consequential deliberation over the prospect in policy-making circles. Then the war changed almost everything.

An unchallenged protagonist

The United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, 2026. Regardless of their stated objectives, the ensuing war has so far had one unmistakable effect on the power dynamics within the Islamic Republic. The IRGC, which had been sanctioned by the EU as a terrorist organization for the first time a month before the war and whose economic activities and institutional autonomy were being called into question by a regime mouthpiece very close to the Supreme Leader, has now become the main actor on the Iranian stage.

“Current political and military conditions suggest that everything is effectively in the hands of the IRGC. The Guards appear to be making the key decisions,” the University of Tehran economist, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, told Resanegar. “The most likely scenario is that the Islamic Republic will remain, with the difference that the IRGC’s presence in the economy will be strengthened as a result of the two recent wars.”

After Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, there was still popular sentiment in favor of curtailing the Guards’ power. They were able to deflect it with significant support from Ali Khamenei, who never made a single public statement about the divestiture directive announced in his name. While the Guards’ institutional position was strengthened, the Supreme Leader retained ultimate authority, with “both oversight of the decision-making process and the ability to control and contain the IRGC,” a veteran security analyst, political scientist, and former University of Tehran faculty member told Resanegar.  

Khamenei’s assassination meant the elimination of that oversight, said the analyst, as the succession of his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, to the post of Supreme Leader was entirely orchestrated by the IRGC. “The succession crisis in the Islamic Republic could not have been resolved so easily without IRGC involvement,” explained the security analyst, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. “It can therefore be said that, in the new configuration of the Islamic Republic, the IRGC has gained a far more important, prominent, and influential role.”

In the absence of any restraint Ali Khamenei might have imposed, the war also freed the corps to flex its muscle in the Strait of Hormuz. While the US blockade has temporarily thwarted the IRGC’s profitable protection racket in the strait, Majles representatives closely aligned with the Guards have introduced a bill under a fast-track, “triple-urgency” mechanism that envisions permanent transit tolls and a new legal framework for the waterway that would make the IRGC the strait’s de facto gatekeeper, dramatically expanding both its revenues and geopolitical influence. “Who would actually collect those fees?” the economist asked rhetorically. “Customs authorities? No—everything would have to be coordinated through the IRGC.”

The conflict has reinforced the Guards’ primacy in foreign policy more broadly. When President Masoud Pezeshkian attempted to reassure Arab neighbors early in the war, military officials swiftly overrode his message with threats of regional escalation. The incident highlighted how, in the new order brought on by the conflict, the IRGC has become the ultimate arbiter of Iran’s external messaging, relegating civilian leaders to a largely symbolic role.

“On the third day of the war, President Pezeshkian apologized to the Gulf states. Five minutes later, Khatam al-Anbiya issued a statement effectively retracting his remarks,” the economist said. “This means that the decision-maker is none other than the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

He described one of the war’s first major consequences as the normalization of the Guards’ economic role. “If yesterday the IRGC was the emperor of Iran’s hidden economy, today it is becoming the central authority within the formal and visible economy,” he said, foreseeing “that no major protocol or policy will be written from this point forward without the IRGC playing a role. Everything will require its approval and coordination.”

Many hopeful observers expected the 2026 war to debilitate the Islamic Republic or even precipitate its collapse. Instead, the conflict appears to have facilitated a large-scale transfer of power from the Supreme Leader’s office and broader clerical establishment to the security apparatus. If the current trajectory continues, the war may be remembered as the event that, far from bringing down the Islamic Republic, consolidated the IRGC’s dominance over it.

The post Not Satisfied With Less Than the Entire Country: The IRGC’s Rise appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

According to rumors circulating in Tehran in recent weeks, Mehdi Khamoushi, head of Iran’s Endowments and Charity Affairs Organization, is set to be named as chief of staff to Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s newly installed Supreme Leader. Already a member of the board of trustees of the Islamic Revolution Cultural Research Institute, responsible for preserving and publishing the works of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khamoushi also has a close familial connection with one of Iran’s oldest surviving political organizations.

Taghi Khamoushi, Mehdi’s father, was for decades one of the leading figures of Motalefeh (the Islamic Coalition Party). Founded in 1963 with roots in the traditional bazaar merchant class, Motalefeh was closely aligned with the clerical establishment that helped bring the Islamic Republic to power in 1979. In the Iranian political context, Motalefeh is a foundational coalition of principlists (osoolgarayan)—ultraconservative supporters of whoever holds the office of Supreme Leader and the doctrine of Velaayat-e Faghih by which he exercises absolute authority.

The party’s religious, traditionalist, and bazaar-based members played a significant role in Iran’s economy from the outset of the 1979 Revolution and controlled a substantial share of the country’s non-oil exports during the Islamic Republic’s early decades. Under the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami, these figures were pushed to the political margins.

As the economic and political power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) grew during the Ahmadinejad era, Motalefeh was sidelined even further, and it ceased to be a major player in the economy. Mehdi Khamoushi’s rumoured appointment as chief of the Supreme Leader’s Office raised the question of whether he might restore Motalefeh to a position of political influence and economic strength.

This past week, Tehran Bureau’s economic unit, Resanegar, put this question to a veteran Iranian economist affiliated with the Institute for Economic Studies and Research of the University of Tehran. With extensive connections across Iran’s business circles (which overlap considerably with its political circles) and a deep understanding of the country’s markets and commerce, he offers an unusually well-informed perspective on the issue.

In analyzing possible shifts in Iran’s power dynamics over the coming months, he downplays the prospect of Motalefeh having the new Supreme Leader’s ear. Instead, he argues that the IRGC—whose economic grip had become less certain in the years before Donald Trump regained the US presidency—is now positioned to be Iran’s true locus of power. The war that began in late February, he argues, has expanded the Guards’ influence in Iran’s economy and politics alike.

Recently, unofficial reports have circulated suggesting that Mehdi Khamoushi may be appointed head of the Supreme Leader’s Office. While the news has not been confirmed, the decision would not be entirely unexpected. His appointment could be significant for Motalefeh, potentially providing it a bridge back from political marginalization. How much could Khamoushi’s arrival at the Leader’s Office affect Iran’s economy? Meysam Khamenei [Mojtaba Khamenei’s youngest brother] is married into the Lolachian family, another prominent Motalefeh-linked family. Even if power is not distributed among [Ali] Khamenei’s [four] sons, it seems unlikely that Mojtaba Khamenei’s brothers would be left without influence. Could some share of power also return to Motalefeh?

Current political and military conditions suggest that everything is effectively in the hands of the IRGC. The Guards appear to be making the key decisions. Yesterday, I watched footage of President Masoud Pezeshkian meeting with managers from the state broadcaster. It seems they are still holding meetings in secure locations. During the meeting, Pezeshkian said that “we do nothing without the Leader’s permission,” yet he had recently stated that he only met with Mojtaba Khamenei two months after [the Supreme Leader’s appointment]. This suggests that affairs have not necessarily been managed directly through the Leader’s authorization.

Whether power will be distributed among the Leader’s sons, or whether Khamoushi becoming chief of staff would alter economic policy, are questions that remain speculative. If we assume for the sake of argument that Seyyed Mehdi Khamoushi does become head of the office—though there is no confirmed information yet—the real question is how much influence he could have over the economy.

In my view, the Leader’s Office exerts its greatest influence by engineering elections in ways that bring to power individuals who will pursue its preferred economic policies. Until we know their electoral plans and what political strategy they intend to implement, we cannot know what economic program or structure they intend to pursue.

Based on Mehdi Khamoushi’s background, it is difficult to determine whether Motalefeh itself would return. If his thinking resembles that of his father, Seyyed Taqi Khamoushi, then his focus would be on the bazaar—not in the liberal economic sense, but in the traditional jurisprudential sense.

This is a conception of the market that is largely insulated from competition. Motalefeh was among the first groups to oppose the establishment of the Refah chain stores. If they truly supported free markets and limited state intervention, they would not have reacted that way. In reality, they have generally opposed modern market structures unless they themselves are incorporated into them.

Ali Naqi Khamoushi [Mehdi Khamoushi’s uncle] chaired Iran’s Chamber of Commerce for nearly thirty years. If you look at the people around him—for example, one of his close associates, who was known as the “father of Iran’s plaster industry” and owned the Semnan plaster business—you find individuals who never worked to modernize the Chamber of Commerce or attempted to integrate Iran into the global trading system.

They made no meaningful effort to bring Iran into the World Trade Organization. In many cases, they showed little interest in or understanding of such institutions. Their primary concern was practical self-interest: if they were importers, they wanted a lower exchange rate to increase profits; if they were exporters—even of raw materials—they sought higher returns. They were not interested in serious competitors or partners.

Given this, does it seem that whether Motalefeh returns or figures like Babak Zanjani remain influential, Iran will continue to follow the same closed, rent-seeking economic model?

Iran’s economy is fundamentally rent-based. It has never operated on meritocracy. Those connected to power receive a share of economic opportunities.

Everyone seeks access to political power because that is how economic benefits are obtained. This differs from developed countries such as Britain or the United States, where individuals generally become economically successful first and then enter politics in an effort to influence policymaking.

Babak Zanjani himself emerged from this system of rent-seeking. Could figures like him become even more influential?

If the Wall Street Journal report is correct and Babak helped transfer roughly $850 million into Iran through cryptocurrencies, then yes, people like him could gain greater influence.

Their expertise lies in sanctions evasion. As long as sanctions remain in place, such individuals continue to serve a practical function for the system.

Returning to Motalefeh: is it fair to say that the party has been marginalized in recent years, and that Mehdi Khamoushi and a new leadership arrangement could bring it back to prominence?

Motalefeh began losing influence when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power, although the process actually started during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency through efforts to take control of the Chamber of Commerce away from them.

Their supporters fought hard to retain influence. At one point, the election of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce chairman was invalidated and he was removed so that Motalefeh could maintain control. They succeeded temporarily, but eventually lost their position as Chamber elections progressed.

During Ahmadinejad’s administration, they were pushed almost entirely to the margins. Even in the petrochemical sector, cases were opened against some of them and they faced considerable pressure.

Even if Khamoushi became chief of staff, that would not necessarily mean Motalefeh’s return. The traditional bazaar economy no longer exists in the form it once did. There is no old-style economic order to restore, nor can they simply oppose modern distribution networks as they once did.

These individuals are deeply embedded within Iran’s economic system and would likely return with a new image. They have tried to adapt to changing circumstances. Their children are now entering positions of influence, and some of them are even frustrated with Iran’s current economic policies. One of them, whom I know personally, openly supports reconciliation with the United States.

The internet and social media have changed too much. This is no longer the era of Motalefeh.

But doesn’t this network still control a significant portion of Iran’s exports?

Iranian exports have changed dramatically. Traditional exports such as carpets, pistachios, and agricultural products no longer play a meaningful role in the country’s trade balance.

At one time, these products accounted for more than 60 percent of Iran’s non-oil exports. Today they represent less than one percent. Carpets, pistachios, legumes—none of them have the importance they once did.

Today, roughly 70 percent of Iran’s non-oil exports consist of petrochemical products and steel.

Doesn’t that still make them influential in the petrochemical sector?

Not particularly. They have interests in companies such as Amir Kabir Petrochemical and Sadaf, but these do not represent a major share of exports.

The Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Holding Company alone accounts for roughly half of Iran’s petrochemical exports. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to say that Motalefeh controls the pulse of petrochemical exports.

Assuming the current political system remains in place, what do you think will be the most important economic change in the coming years?

If the system survives, the most significant change will be continuity in the direction established by the recent conflicts. Iran’s economy will increasingly become an economy dominated by military institutions.

The IRGC and Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters will expand their influence. Any meaningful change in economic policy would require a change in the IRGC’s outlook.

The Guards will likely gain even greater freedom of action. More state contracts will be awarded to them.

There was an interesting article in Foreign Affairs written by one of the American negotiators involved in the Obama-era nuclear talks. He argued that the nuclear agreement had been structured in a way that effectively discouraged the IRGC from economic involvement. According to him, the Iranian government itself had shown an interest in reducing the IRGC’s role because sanctions targeting the Guards also harmed the broader economy.

But what Trump did effectively reversed that trend and made the IRGC central to the economy once again.

The IRGC will likely gain even more authority. Consider the idea of asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz and collecting transit fees. Who would actually collect those fees? Customs authorities? No—everything would have to be coordinated through the IRGC.

On the third day of the war, President Pezeshkian apologized to the Gulf states. Five minutes later, Khatam al-Anbiya issued a statement effectively retracting his remarks.

Trump ended up giving the IRGC everything it wanted. What he did ultimately strengthened the organization. From now on, the IRGC will operate openly in the economy.

If yesterday the IRGC was the emperor of Iran’s hidden economy, today it is becoming the central authority within the formal and visible economy. I am confident that no major protocol or policy will be written from this point forward without the IRGC playing a role. Everything will require its approval and coordination.

So a return of Motalefeh to power is unlikely?

In this new political landscape, neither Motalefeh nor any other political party is likely to play a decisive role.

Trump made what I would describe as a strategic mistake. The IRGC now sees the situation as a blessing in disguise. A ripe fruit has fallen into its lap, and it has no intention of sharing that fruit with anyone else.

The post “Trump Ended Up Giving the IRGC Everything It Wanted” appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

The targeting of major Iranian steel plants by Israeli and US forces is threatening the future of Mobarakeh Steel, one of the largest producers in the MENA region and responsible for as much as 50 percent of Iran’s total steel production. By government estimates, Mobarakeh’s revenues in recent years have been equivalent to almost one-sixth of the national budget. 

A crucial source of income for the Iranian industrial-military complex that controls it, Mobarakeh Steel facilities were struck in attacks days apart over the past week. Company representatives have reported extensive damage and a near-total shutdown of the massive operation. Mobarakeh’s bombing—and the risk of additional strikes—may have a significant economic impact on ordinary Iranians, already under severe duress.

On the night of March 31, according to Iranian state-controlled news sources, Israel and the United States launched a joint attack on the sprawling Mobarakeh Steel complex in Isfahan, as well as the smaller, affiliated Sefid-Dasht plant in Chaharmahal.

Four days earlier, Mobarakeh was hit by strikes, similarly attributed to both Israel and the US, that reportedly led to partial shutdowns at the Isfahan facility. Structures suffering damage included a substation, alloy steel production line, and power plants key to the steel facilities’ electrical supply. In southwest Iran, Israeli planes also targeted Khuzestan Steel, the country’s second-largest producer, where the damage was reportedly limited to two storage silos.

Steel has been a pillar of Iran’s non-oil industry since the 1970s. Given Mobarakeh’s central position, as well as the role it plays in the web of semi-private conglomerates that finance the regime, the threat of its destruction was already sending ripples through the domestic market after the first wave of strikes. 

“Bombing doesn’t stop our work,” Bahram, a Tehran resident employed in construction, told Resanegar, Tehran Bureau’s economic unit. “What stops us is the absence of materials in the market.”

While supplies of construction materials held up during the first weeks of the war, they tightened considerably following the March 27 steel-plant attacks. Bahram remarked that even prepurchased materials were not being delivered as vendors pull back stock in anticipation of price rises. “No one is willing to sell something they know will soon become completely unavailable,” he said.

Ownership and ties to Sepah Cooperative Foundation

Mobarakeh Steel is partially owned by the Sepah Cooperative Foundation (Bonyad Taavon Sepah, or BTS), among the largest of the many quasi-governmental “charitable” institutions, or bonyads, whose economic activities enrich the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) and the country’s ruling elite. 

A 2022 Iranian parliamentary report found that, between 2018 and 2021, the company generated revenue equivalent to roughly 15 percent of the country’s national budget. The US government, in 2020, assessed that Mobarakeh was responsible for one percent of Iranian GDP.

Though Mobarakeh’s owners have changed over the years amid various opaque privatization schemes, documents suggest that BTS has maintained beneficial ownership of the steel complex since its privatization in the 2000s. Tehran Bureau’s reporting has shown that even a relatively low percentage of ownership by BTS or another bonyad allows regime-linked actors to exercise effective control over a company’s finances and operations. Among the other entities that have had a stake in Mobarakeh Steel is Omid Investment Management Company, a subsidiary of the IRGC’s Bank Sepah.

According to publicly available business registry documents analyzed by Tehran Bureau in 2020, Mobarakeh was connected to two companies related to the bonyads via its board members: Andishe Mehvaran Investment Company and Sadr Tamin Investment.

Andishe Mehvaran Investment Company, in turn, had Iran Zinc Mines Development among its board members. (It is common for regime-linked companies to be listed as “members” of each other’s boards in business registry documents to obscure the identities of the individuals who control them.) Iran Zinc Mines Development was partially owned by Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company and Ofoq Nili Khalij Fars, subsidiaries of Bank Mehr Eqtesad, co-owned by BTS and the Basij militia.

Mobarakeh Steel is also tied to the Tamin Investment Fund (Shasta) via its subsidiary Sadr Tamin Investments. Shasta, aka Social Security Investment Co. (SSIC), has a stake in 36 of Iran’s top 100 companies, as well as 27 of Iran’s top 59 oil companies. Government-owned, Shasta in turn co-owns companies along with the armed forces, BTS, and EIKO, among other bonyads. As such, it is a vehicle for corruption in its own right—a significant link in the chain of complex ownership structures that keeps money flowing from public coffers into the private hands of the IRI aristocracy. 

Endemic corruption

As one of the most profitable businesses in Iran’s slow-moving economy, Mobarakeh has long been a cash cow for its owners and managers. 

In May 2020, the value of Mobarakeh Steel’s shares on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) surged to record highs on the back of a rushed sell-off of state-owned consortia after COVID-19. The TSE’s main index surpassed one million points for the first time in its 32-year history, driven largely by industrial, petrochemical, and mining stocks. The firms involved in the transactions were linked to Shasta, the IRGC, the armed forces, and major bonyads, with these largely unaccountable entities capturing much of the profits.

In 2022, the Tehran Stock Exchange suspended Mobarakeh Steel trading following a 297-page Majles report claiming the company’s managers had abused their positions to defraud the government and shareholders of billions of dollars. A government investigation into the company uncovered widespread fraud and cronyism causing losses of hundreds of billions to trillions of rials. The investigation’s findings included mismanaged and fraudulent contracts, below-market deals with automakers, and profiteering from steel surpluses. Executives also inflated payrolls by hiring relatives and even concocting fictitious employees while awarding themselves exorbitant salaries.

The IRITEC connection and US sanctions

The industry know-how that led to the creation of Mobarakeh Steel dates back to before the Islamic Revolution. In 1975, several state-owned Iranian industrial concerns entered a joint venture with an Italian company to found the Iran International Engineering Company (IRITEC). The firm introduced direct reduction technology, a leap forward in Iran’s industrial development, leveraging natural gas rather than the emissions-heavy coke traditionally used in steel production. Following the 1979 revolution, IRITEC was instrumental in the founding of Mobarakeh Steel and the later construction of its massive Isfahan complex. With more than two dozen plants spread out across 35 square kilometers, the complex became operational in 1992.

In the early 2000s, privatization led by President Hashemi Rafsanjani transferred the ownership of the country’s largest companies to conglomerates controlled by the IRGC and the bonyads, which are formally accountable to the Office of the Supreme Leader (Beyt-e Rahbari). While Mobarakeh came under the effective control of BTS, IRITEC was taken over by the government-controlled privatization organization, which claimed IRITEC was unable to sustain itself financially. This is a tactic frequently used by regime actors to gain control of profitable companies. 

IRITEC subsequently featured in sanctions litigation involving the Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo. In 2013, the bank agreed to a $2.95 million settlement with US authorities for processing transactions linked to Irasco S.r.l., a Genoa-based company co-owned by IRITEC, in violation of sanctions. The case highlighted compliance failures involving dealings with Iran, Tehran Bureau’s reporting has shown.

Five years later, in October 2018, Mobarakeh was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for funneling millions of dollars annually to Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company, which helps finance the Basij militia—and collaborates on multiple projects with IRITEC. In January 2020, OFAC announced further sanctions on Mobarakeh as part of sweeping penalties on Iran’s “steel, aluminum, copper, and iron manufacturers” for funding and enabling the nation’s regime. That June, five Mobarakeh subsidiaries—one wholly owned, the others majority-controlled—were also designated for sanctions by OFAC.

The post Iran’s Top Steelmaker, Nexus of Graft, Shut Down by Air Strikes appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

The IRGC newly appointed chief Ahmad Vahidi is a co-founder of the Defense Ministry Auditing firm, entrusted to oversee the financial records of the ministry’s network of affiliated companies.

Iran’s security apparatus uses such organizations to shield classified financial information from broader governmental scrutiny. (Another example is Mofid Rahbar, which oversees the vast empire of companies controlled by the Supreme Leader’s Office.)

The other Defense Ministry Auditing Firm founders are Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi (IRGC, died in 2021), Asghar Saleh Isfahani (IRGC-Navy), Qasem Taqizadeh (IRGC), Gholam Ali Movahedi (IRGC), Mostafa Esbati (Armed Forces), and Mohammad Eslami (Gov’t).

Overview of Defense Ministry Auditing Firm Founders

-Former Deputy IRGC Commander Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi died in 2021. He was among the founding members of Adishehaye Imam Khomeini Institute. 

Established April 21, 2012, the institute’s articles of association say it is a “seminary” institution that will  “set up centers in elementary [schools], high schools and universities to encourage students to join the clergy.” Pasta tycoon Reza Motallebi Kashani, who heads another Iranian political business empire, was one of the founding members of this institution. 

Hejazi was deputy commander of  the IRGC’s Tharrallah Headquarters, which is tasked with the  security of the Iranian Capital and put down unrest during the protests that followed the 2009 presidential election. 

Some of his other positions included deputy commander-chief of the  IRGC, Commander of IRGC forces in Lebanon, and Commander of the Basij Forces (1997-2007).

• Commodore Asghar Saleh Isfahani previously headed the Iran-Oman Joint Military Commission, deputy for planning and budget for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic. 

• Brigadier General Qasem Taqizadeh was deputy defense minister and headed the Atomic Energy Organization under the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi.

• Gholam Ali Movahedi is involved with various companies belonging to the Armed Forces, such as Shiraz Electronic Industries and the IRGC’s Sepah Cooperative Foundation (BTS) companies such as Alamas Hekmat Iranian Investment, Soroush Eqtesad Mehr, Zomorrod Fam Persian and Soroush Hekmat Iranian. He also is connected to the Sobh Qarib Iranian Foundation.

• Mostafa Esbati  has held positions such as head of the Defense Ministry’s Marine Industries Organization and the head of the Armed Forces Social Security Organization. He has been a board member of Armed Forces companies. 

• Mohammad Eslami is the current Minister of Roads and Urban Development and a member of the board of the Armed Forces Cooperative Organization, also known as ETKA Holding. He has held positions in the Islamic Revolution Committees, various defense industry organizations and Mostazafan Foundation (BM) companies. He teaches at Malek Ashtar University of Technology, formerly headed by assassinated nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. 

Adishehaye Imam Khomeini Culture and Research Institute 

Established in April 21, 2012, the institute’s articles of association say it is a “seminary” institution that will  “set up centers in elementary [schools], high schools and universities to encourage students to join the clergy.” Motallebi Kashani was one of the founding members of this institution. Other members include:

• Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi stands out among the founding members of Adishehaye Imam Khomeini Institute, as he is IRGC and was recently appointed as Deputy Quds Force Commander.¹

He was deputy commander of  the IRGC’s Tharrallah Headquarters which is tasked with the  security of the Iranian Capital and put down unrest during the protests that followed the 2009 presidential election.

Some of his other positions include deputy commander-chief of the  IRGC, Commander of IRGC forces in Lebanon, and Commander of the Basij Forces (1997-2007).

Public records show that Hejazi is also one  of the founders of the Defense Ministry Auditing firm along with Ahmad Vahidi (IRGC-QF), Asghar Saleh Isfahani (IRGC-Navy), Qasem Taqizadeh (IRGC), Gholam Ali Movahedi (IRGC), Mostafa Esbati, and Mohammad Eslami.

Vahidi is the former Quds Force commander,  former defense minister, and current member of the expediency council.

The post New IRGC Head Ahmad Vahidi Tied to Secretive Defense Ministry Audit Entity appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

Pressure on the media in Iran intensified shortly after the 1979 revolution, beginning with the shutdown of the “Ayandegan” newspaper, the seizure of major newspapers “Kayhan” and “Ettela’at”, and the persecution of numerous journalists through imprisonment and execution. In the aftermath of the revolution, Khomeini’s supporters targeted many independent magazines and newspaper establishments, leading to their closures. At the time, there was no legal basis for these press restrictions. However, the Islamic Republic later implemented laws to formalize censorship and restrict the issuance of licenses for independent media outlets.

The “Press Law” of the Islamic Republic, enacted in 1986, saw amendments in 1999 and 2017. These changes further tightened the media landscape, placing significant constraints on journalists.
In Iran, truly independent media outlets are virtually non-existent. The proprietors and senior editors of what are labeled as “independent media” often have affiliations with different factions of the Islamic Republic’s government and institutions. As a consequence, while some media entities might seem independent at first glance, they often toe specific political lines set by the regime. Journalists who overstep these boundaries risk severe repercussions, including imprisonment, torture, and, in extreme cases, execution.

The Iranian government’s vigilance also extends to social networks. Bodies such as the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, established in 2011, aim to inhibit both journalists and the broader public from using these platforms freely for expression. This restrictive approach to cyberspace underscores the government’s overarching objective to maintain a stranglehold on all forms of communicative information dissemination. Despite the formidable challenges and hurdles facing them, some Iranian journalists remain undeterred, bravely upholding their commitment to their profession.

The post Media in the Post-revolutionary Iran: A Timeline appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

Overview

Staffed by hard-line management whose members include execs from its big brother Fars News, the news agency Mashregh is a relatively new online media outlet controlled by the IRGC. As such, its content promotes Ali Khamenei’s ideology and the corps’ political agenda. 

Of the three people on its board of directors, one conspicuously lacks a public footprint (Afshar), another is on the coalition of Principlist parties who support President Ebrahim Raisi and install IRGC members into newsrooms (Davari) and the third, (Qobadi) has overseen at least two purges at Fars and IRNA news agencies. (The evidence suggests he is an IRGC intelligence officer.) 

Founding document

Registered as “Yavaran Khorshid Mashregh Cultural and Media Institute” on June 24, 2012, Mashregh is a news website closely affiliated with the IRGC. It heavily focuses on promoting concepts and slogans put forth by Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei, as our previous reporting has shown.

Mashregh’s articles of incorporation outline its objectives as “disseminating information and news, enlightening public opinion in line with the policies of the sacred Islamic Republic regime, news coverage of the three branches of government, “establishing communication with other independent media outlets, especially in the Muslim world,” and “paying serious attention to setting professional standards and observing professional and media ethics”, “cooperation, and collaboration with various [government] organizations to fulfill the mission of news delivery,” “obtaining loans from domestic and foreign banks and financial institutions, establishing branches domestically or internationally,” among other things. 

Pro-regime language

The “About Us” section of Mashregh’s website lacks concrete information about its activities and instead presents a lengthy essay that expresses hardline and pro-regime views. 

The website features sections including “Softwar“, a term coined by Khamenei), “Jihad and Resistance“, which contains propaganda about Quds Force operatives, their activities, and capabilities, as well as Hezbollah (Lebanon) and other anti-Israel allies of the Islamic Republic and spy captures, “Defense and Security”, which disseminates propaganda regarding the exaggerated accomplishments of the Islamic Republic’s armed forces, and Society, whose articles often contain harmful disinformation.  

The website also cherry-picks social media posts from Twitter, Telegram, and a government-sponsored messaging application called EITAA.

Mashregh’s Notable IRGC Board Members

Kamran Qobadi (Board Member)

Qobadi is one of the founding and current board members of Mashregh. Additionally, he has previously held the position of editor-in-chief at Mashregh. According to the news portal Zeitoons, Qobadi is reportedly a member of the IRGC intelligence apparatus.

Qobadi was an editor-in-chief at the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency from 2015 to August 2017, according to public announcements made by the news agency.  

In March 2016 Qobadi allegedly assisted an IRGC member named HamidReza Tabatabaei, who was poised to become the CEO of the news agency, in purging 50 “undesirable individuals” from the media outlet, according to a number of news websites.

While Rooznameh Rasmi documents indicate that HamidReza Tabatabaei was an equity partner in Fars News Agency from December 2017 until May 2021, there is no record of him ever becoming CEO.  

By August 20, 2017, Qobadi had become the Director of News at Fars News Agency, according to various reports. However, no official announcements were made regarding his appointment to this position.

Qobadi was appointed as the Director of News for the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on November 24, 2021. 

During the inauguration ceremony, IRNA CEO Ali Naderi described Qobadi as an “experienced media” manager and “transformative figure” who has been “instrumental in bringing about innovative changes in many media outlets” and a “Hezbollahi”¹ individual “aligned with the path of the “martyrs and SL”

Qobadi, in turn, said that he had been stationed at IRNA for some time and had “conducted various investigations”, adding that he would begin a period of transformation at IRNA with the help of staff.

Unsurprisingly, by August 4, 2022, reports began to emerge on social media about layoffs at IRNA, with one Tweet revealing that reporters learned of their termination through a WhatsApp message. According to subsequent reports from IranWire and Melliun, 500 reporters were laid off from IRNA.

As an illustration of his Hezbollahi past, Qobadi was one of the signatories of a letter asking the notorious judge Mohammad Moghiseh to prosecute late president Hashemi Rafsanjani’s son Mehdi Hashemi in February 2015.  Qobadi was also a signatory of a 2014 petition by hardline and ultraconservative “media workers” demanding that they be sent to Gaza to cover what they described as “unprecedented atrocities committed in the Strip.” 

Qobadi was also on the board of  Mellat Construction Co, a Bank Mellat subsidiary, from March 2018 to April 2023. Bank Mellat is a state-owned banks sanctioned by the US Treasury. 

Reza Davari (CEO, Board Chairman )

Davari is one of the founding members of Mashregh and has been CEO and chairman of its board of directors since its inception. According to Zeitoons, Reza Davari is also an IRGC member who at one point appointed Reza Garmabdari editor-in-chief at Mashregh.

Garmabdari was formerly the head of the IRGC Political Studies Center and editor-in-chief of Sobh-e Sadeq, a weekly magazine published by the Political directorate of the IRGC.

On August 17, 2022, Davari became the secretary of the Coalition Council of Islamic Revolution Forces. This conservative coalition of parties was founded in 2019 and is led by Gholam Ali Hadad Adel, whose daughter Zahra is married to Mojtaba Khamenei.

Meysam Afshar  (Board Member)

Afshar is the third founding member of Mashregh. Aside from two RRK records pertaining to Mashregh, there are no other mentions of Afshar in public records. This in itself raises red flags. It suggests his name and personal information, the reporting of which is a standard requirement in such high-profile appointments, was intentionally omitted to protect his identity. 

The post The disappearing execs of Mashregh News appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

The IRGC-owned Atlas Media Group was founded following the 2009 Green Movement protests to counter “soft war” efforts. 

In October 2020, Ammariyon HQ, a unit believed to be associated with the IRGC cyber division, revealed in a Telegram post that the IDO had purchased Atlas for the publicized price of 20 billion Toman (about $20 million at the time). 

The Islamic Development Organization (IDO) is one of the several agencies controlled by Ali Khamenei, as Tehran Bureau has shown in previous reporting. Both Mehr News and Tehran Times are owned by the IDO.

Jabbari and the Atlas Media Group

In December 2020, state news outlets reported the death of Mohammad Saeed Jabbari, who had been the CEO of Nasim Online, managing editor of 90 Eqtesadi and CEO of Roshangari website, according to the reports. 

Mehr News Agency claimed he died of cardiac arrest, a common official cause of death during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, at the age of 33.  His memorial service was sponsored by IDO Arts Center and Safir Film, which was founded by Jabbari himself. 

Several news reports provided evidence of Jabbari’s links to Atlas:

-Jabbari’s obituary in Roshangari says Jabbari mentored Syrian youth in a “documentary filmmaking course held in Aleppo by Safir Film and Owj Arts and Media Organization (IRGC)” and that Jabbari had been managing “Atlas Media Center” since 2018. 

-In another report linking Jabbar to Atlas, Shabestan News Agency published the condolence letter of IRGC Commander Gholamreza Jalali who heads the National Passive Defense Organization (see below). The report also states that Jabbari had been the head of  “Atlas Media Center” since 2018 and includes a poster of Jabbari with a quote from Khamenei from his meeting with a  “group of Atlas Media Group employees.”
There is no information available about Atlas Media Group in public databases such as Rooznameh Rasmi, but an issue of the Atlas Media Group’s weekly magazine is available. The magazine dates back to September 2, 2012, and features articles from some of the group’s media outlets, including Nasim Online, ‌Borhan News Agency, and Eshraf News Agency.

-Borhan News Agency was launched in 2011, according to Fars News, but the website no longer exists, even in internet archives. 

-Eshraf News Agency is also defunct, but archived versions of its website are still available.

–Behdokht (better women), which is now defunct 

–Didarmedia (which has a one sentence About Us: “We give you news no other media has access to”) 

-Mowj Ghanoon (law wave), and Iran Hastei (nuclear Iran) are also reportedly part of the Atlas Media group, according to Melliun.org, but Tehran Bureau was unable to verify evidence of their existence  

—Afsaran Javan Jang Narm (young officers of soft war), which is linked to Atlas HOW, has a telegram channel. Afsaran’s website lists a series of supporters and colleagues which are all IRGC cyber army social media handles/ websites that push the guards’ agenda on various platforms including:  Enghelabi news , Radar Enghelab (insta, twitter, Aparat etc), Bisimchimedia (twitter, aparat etc ), Twitter Enghelabi  (telegram, aparat , etc), Andishkadeh Tabyin, Khiyaban Engelab (insta), Beheshte Shahr (insta), Arman TV (insta, apparat).

-Bisimchimedia, which recently made waves online with Twitter users calling on others to report Bisimchimedia accounts for being the first to post videos of forced confessions by Iranian women detained over their refusal to wear the veil.

Bisimchimedia’s media content is regularly used by Islamic Republic media outlets such as Hamshahri in their coverage of news about the arrest of social media users who defy the archaic and repressive hijab laws. 

Problematic content

-Atlas Media group was behind a cyber attack on Malia Obama, the daughter of the former U.S. president, according to Melliun News Agency.

Intentionally opaque ownership structure points to the IRGC

So who owns Nasim Online and 90 Eghtesadi? The lack of official business records and the sale to the IDO suggest that its beneficial owner is the IRGC. The corps is likely using resources from the IDO to disguise its control of the media organizations. To this end, the IRGC created Novin Rasaneh Sepehr Tasvir, the entity that holds the publishing rights to Nasim Online and 90 Eghtesadi.

The post The hidden powers of Atlas Media Group appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

Fars News Agency

Founded in 2003, Fars News Agency is the most established of the IRGC’s major media outlets. Hamidreza Moghaddamfar, an IRGC commander who also influenced the founding of Tasnim news agency and Javan newspaper, was on the board of Fars until April 2012, after which he transferred his shares in the agency to Seyyed Nezamoldin Mousavi and exited the organization, Rooznameh Rasmi documents show. 

The identity of the news organization’s founder helps explain the political leanings that motivated Fars’ disinformation drive against those who participated in the recent nationwide uprisings in Iran. One of Fars’ recent targets was Sarina Esmailzadeh, a 16-year-old girl was killed on September 23, 2022 in Karaj as a result of baton blows to the head from IR thugs, according to eyewitness accounts cited by Radiozamaneh, BBC Persian and Radio Farda.

On October 12, 2022 Fars News Agency alleged all these reports as fake, and that Esmailzadeh died as a result of jumping from a building. The news agency went on to cite a poll conducted by its research branch, which allegedly showed BBC Persian, Radio Farda, Iran International, VOA, and Manoto had published 17,312 fake news stories about the protests in Iran between September 14, 2022 and October 8, 2022.

In a separate instant on October 4, 2022, after 11-year-old Fatemeh Rezaei died in Qom under unusual circumstances, Fars conducted an interview with her father. He is quoted as saying she died from an infection and kidney problems, not poisoning. Currently, schoolgirls in various cities in Iran are said to have been poisoned by the authorities as revenge for participating in anti-hijab protests, according to various international news reports.

Last November, the Iranian hacktivist group “Black Reward”, which has targeted various Islamic Republic institutions and infrastructures, leaked an audio recording said to have been obtained from Fars News Agency’s internal servers. The recording was of a secret meeting between the Deputy Commander of the Basij, Qassem Qoreishi, and the managers of “aligned media” [meaning aligned with the regime] about the uprising in Iran and the regime’s plans to create a counternarrative. 

In the two-hour meeting which took place late in November 2022, several individuals gave reports about the protests. Qoreishi briefed them on how the regime wanted to counter and mitigate them. His suggestions included placing institutional pressure on female actresses and other celebrities who publicly removed their hijab in solidarity with the protests and using the FIFA World Cup in Qatar as an opportunity to reframe the protests as a public celebration. 

Qoreishi also mentioned a “fact-finding mission” to intimidate Molavi Abdolhamid, the prominent Sunni cleric and Friday Prayer leader in Zahedan, following the September massacre of protesters. Qoreishi also instructed state-run media to stop referring to “the protests” in their reporting, and instead use the terms “past riots,” “Mehr riots,” or “black sedition.”

A detailed look at the figures behind Fars News Agency

Seyyed Nezamoldin Mousavi 

While not an IRGC member, Mousavi is an influential presence in Iran’s conservative media scene. His previous roles as a spin doctor for various Supreme Leader-controlled “bonyads” and media regulators has contributed to his rise to political power. Now an MP for Tehran, Mousavi was a member of the board of directors of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz, the organization that owns the daily newspaper Javan, from 2012 until 2017, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents.

Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz is a Basij Cooperative Foundation, or Bonyad Taavon Basij (BTB) subsidiary, which in turn is controlled by the IRGC Cooperative Foundation, or Bonyad Taavon Sepah.

Hamidreza Moghaddamfar 

Moghaddamfar is an IRGC commander and the culture and media advisor to the IRGC commander-in-chief. He is also the deputy head of the office for the Preservation and Publication of the Supreme Leader’s works which is tasked with printing, promoting, and distributing Khamenei’s works. 

He has been on the board of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz since 2012 and is also one of the founding and current board members of Tasnim News Agency. He was the CEO of Fars News Agency in 2012. He is also the secretary of the People’s Headquarters for Commemoration of Qassem Soleimani.

The third notable figure on Fars News Agency’s board of directors is Mohammad Mehdi Sayyari Zahan, who has been the board chairman of Fars since March 2008, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents. Mehdi Sayyari is an IRGC Commander and the deputy commander of the IRGC Intelligence organization, according to the Afkar news portal. (In a Rooznameh Rasmi ad from March 2008, Sayyari Zahan’s father’s name is stated as Mohammad Ali and his place of birth is Qaenat in South Khorasan. When his father died, a host of IR officials sent Sayyari Zahan condolence messages in which they name his father as Haj Mohammad Ali Sayyari.)

Tasnim news agency

Tasnim News Agency is the largest IRGC-owned media outlet. Tasnim’s media license is held by Atisazan Farhangi Tasnim Institute.  Rooznameh Rasmi documents show that this news agency was founded on June 30, 2012 by IRGC commander Hamidreza Moghaddamfar (see above), Jafar Darouneh (board chairman) and Majid Qolizadeh Zahmatkesh (CEO). 

Jafar Darouneh, who was head of Tehran’s Department of Education in the Ahmadinejad administration, in addition to his position at Tasnim, is the secretary of a convention called “Tolou Haqiqat,” which aims to commemorate two letters that Khamenei wrote to western youth in 2015, preventing them from being forgotten. 

Majid Qolizadeh Zahmatkesh has remained the CEO of Tasnim since its establishment and has been chosen as a Qard al-Hasan ambassador by Mehr-e Iran Qard al-Hasan Bank, a sanctioned financial institution whose shareholders include the armed forces-owned Bank Sepah, as well as other bonyad-affiliated banks, as shown by this Rooznameh Rasmi document and reporting by Tehran Bureau.

Moghaddamfar, Darouneh and Qolizadeh Zahmatkesh are all on the board of the Imam Hasan Mojtaba Charity for Orphans and the Needy, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents. 

Tasnim and the crackdowns

The identity of the Tasnim’s founder and shareholders helps explain the agency’s active role in the state-led disinformation campaign against protesters. 

On March 1, 2023, Radio Farda reported that security officers assaulted the mother of one of the students poisoned at the 13 Aban School in Tehran. On March 2, Tasnim published an exclusive report that quoted a police spokesperson saying an investigation concluded the woman had no children in 13 Aban School and had no familial connection to any of its pupils. He added that the individuals who assaulted the woman in the video have been identified and arrested. 

The news agency also ran a smear campaign against Esteghlal FC forward Mehdi Ghayedi, who refused to discuss his winning performance in a match on December 26, telling reporters that “Football is not what concerns people right now.” 

On January 1, 2023, Tasnim reported that a number of footballers, including some who lack “the motivation to compete or even talk about football”, were arrested at a party “in an abnormal state caused by the consumption of alcoholic beverages.” According to other news reports, Ghayedi was one of the detainees.

The post The IRGC’s Media Trifecta Part 1: The Case of Tasnim and Fars appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

The following report reviews the publicly available evidence of the IRGC’s ownership links to Nasim and 90 Eqtesadi, shedding light on the opaque business structure that disguises the corps’ control of these media outlets. In its previous reporting, Tehran Bureau detailed the media business activities of Atlas Media Group, the likely owner of the news portals Nasim Online and 90 Eqtesadi, among others.  

According to the IRGC’s Ammariyon HQ, Nasim Online and 90 Eqtesadi are both owned by Atlas Media Group. This information was included in an article detailing the sale of Atlas Media Group to the Islamic Media Organization (IDO, controlled by Ali Khamenei. At the time, the story was covered by a minor Iranian news agency called Ensaf News, which claimed that the deal enabled the head of the IDO, Mohammad Qomi, to expand his media influence due to his aspirations to run for president.

At first glance, the records suggest Nasim Online has always belonged to the IDO. It is registered at an address on Tehran’s Vali-e Asr Street (Tehran, Enghelab Street, between Abureihan and Palestine Streets, next to Bank Saderat, Saroosh Building, No. 2.), where a host of other IDO companies are officially based. 
Nasim’s website also lists a second address on Sanaei Street (Tehran, Karimkhan Zand Street, near Sanaei Street, No. 101), where a group of other IDO companies are also registered.

So who owns Nasim Online and 90 Eghtesadi? The lack of official business records and the sale to the IDO suggest that its beneficial owner is the IRGC. The corps is likely using resources from the IDO to disguise its control of the media organizations. To this end, the IRGC created Novin Rasaneh Sepehr Tasvir, the entity that holds the publishing rights to Nasim Online and 90 Eghtesadi. 

The umbrella company: Novin Rasaneh Sepehr Tasvir

This media company was established December 19, 2019, according to this Rooznameh Rasmi document. 

Novin Rasaneh Sepehr Tasvir currently holds the publishing rights to news websites such as  Nasim Online  (established in 2013), and 90 Eqtesadi (established in 2017). 

Its board members include:

Mohammad Shojaian Zanjani – Equity partner, CEO of founders board, vice chairman

Shojaian Zanjani is a long-time manager of various state-linked enterprises, and was formerly the director general of the Content Production and Distribution Division of the IRIB Cyberspace Directorate. He was the CEO of Mehr News Agency from September 2019 to  April 2023  and the managing editor of the English-language Tehran Times during the same period. 

Both Mehr and Tehran Times are owned by IDO. It should be noted that Fariduddin Haddad Adel, whose sister is married to SL’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, has served on the board of both Mehr and Tehran Times.

Shojaian  was also a founding member and equity partner in another company, Mowj Yek Atlas Emrouz,  which was founded on July 29, 2018 to provide computer services (hardware and software), and internet networks, informatics and domain hosting services, according to Rooznameh Rasmi.

Shojaian was also an equity partner and founding member of Payam Koutah Nasim, or Nasimonline (see below) in 2013, according to Rooznameh Rasmi. 

Yaser Jalali- Equity partner, chairman of founding board

According to state-linked sources, Yaser Jalali is the son-in-law of IRGC Commander Gholamreza Jalali, who heads the National Passive Defense Organization. 

Both Jalalis are staunch supporters of broader internet restrictions in the country. Yaser has openly advocated for the controversial Cyberspace service regulation system act known in Iran as “Sianat,” which gives control of internet exchange to the Armed forces.  

Yaser is the special assistant to the head of IDO, and sits on the board of dozens of IDO-owned companies such as Sepehr Fund (vice chairman), Bonyad Sepehr Tableegh Novin (CEO), Iran E Publications  (Board Chairman), Tebyan Nour Foundation (Vice Chairman), and Pardis Sharif Soroush (Board Chairman), to name a few. 

Notably, Khamenei’s nephew relative Komeil Khojasteh was the CEO of Tebyan Nour until April 2022.

Yaser Jalali was also a board member of IRIB subsidiaries Jam-e Jam Bartar Borna and Soroush Data . Jam-e Jam Bartar Borna (2019-2022) offered “management contract services and Soroush Data (2007) offers information technology services.

Jam-e Jam Bartar Borna holds the publishing rights to Vatan Emrouz Newspaper.

Fariduddin Haddad Adel, whose sister is married to SL’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, was also a board member and equity partner in Jam-e Jam Bartar Borna.

Jalali has also served on the boards of bonyad-owned media and Information technology companies such as  Fanava IDC (BTS), Raymon Media (EIKO) via  Iran Mobin Electronic Development Co.

Jalali has previously been featured on Ali Khamenei’s website, Leader.ir.

Like Shojaian, Jalali is also a founding member and equity partner in Mowj Yek Atlas Emrouz  (see above).

The cultural outlet: Nasim Online

Nasim Online was established on December 16, 2013  By Mohammad Shojaian Zanjani and Gholam Reza Nouri Hefzabad under the name Payam Koutah Nasim, according to Rooznameh Rasmi. 

Its articles of incorporation outlined its objectives as “designing databases and public and specialized libraries, as well as informational websites, providing services such as cataloging, indexing, and organizing artistic and cultural documents and records.” In July 2019, Nasim’s objectives were expanded to include “information dissemination in the fields of culture, art, Quranic sciences, and Islamic teachings.” 

The “About Us” section of its website states that Nasim “examines issues from the perspective of the “Islamic Revolution discourse,” and seeks to transform the “current conditions” into what they should be, which is reminiscent of Khamenei’s language about repression.

Board member and equity changes have not been properly recorded on Rooznameh Rasmi, which only lists two documents for the organization (see above). 

Nasim’s founding board members are: 

Mohammad Shojaian Zanjani

Payam Koutah Nasim (Nasimonline)-  Equity partner, founding board CEO

Shojaian was formerly the director general of the Content Production and Distribution Division of the IRIB Cyberspace Directorate. He was the CEO of Mehr News Agency from September 2019 to April 2023  and the managing editor of the English-language Tehran Times during the same period. 

Both Mehr and Tehran Times are owned by the Islamic Development Organization (IDO) which is one of the several agencies controlled by Ali Khamenei. Members of the ayatollah’s family have been board members in the tw over the years. 

Shojaian  was also a founding member of a company called Mowj Yek Atlas Emrouz in 2018,  which provides computer, informatics and domain hosting services, according to Rooznameh Rasmi.

He is also one of the founding members of Novin Rasaneh Sepehr Tasvir, which holds the publishing rights to Nasim Online, according to Rooznameh Rasmi.

Gholam Reza Nouri Hefzabad– Equity partner, chairman of founding board, board chairman. 

Nouri was appointed VP of cyberspace for IRIB on October 7, 2022.  In an interview with the Clean Cyberspace Association (FAMP) Nouri 

discussed his views on regulating the internet in Iran. He said he had “banned any reference to Instagram” and other international social media platforms in IRIB programming, adding that presenters are now only allowed to say “follow us on social media platforms.” 

The Clean Cyberspace Association (FAMP), an organization connected to the Khamenei family, is actively involved in efforts to push for more internet censorship in Iran.

Nouri has been an executive in various Supreme Leader-controlled media, including:

• Jam-e Jam Bartar Borna – Nouri was vice chairman of the founding board of this IRIB subsidiary, which was founded on June 25, 2019 and offered “management contract services for the implementation of institution projects.” Notably, Fariduddin Haddad Adel, whose sister is married to SL’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, was also a board member and equity partner in this company which was dissolved on January 17, 2022.

•  Jam-e Jam Institute – Nouri represented IRIB interests and chaired the board of directors of this institute from April 23, 2021 to March 27, 2022, when he was replaced by Fariduddin Haddad Adel.  Fariduddin has been a long-time board member of Jam-e Jam Institute. 

• Payam Novin Jam-e Jam Saba– Nouri was Chairman of the founding board of this company, which was founded on July 18, 2018, and represented the interests of Jam-e Jam Institute. This company which was established to offer “information technology services…[and] design, establish, and implement extensive communication and telecommunications computer networks…” was dissolved on July 6, 2021.

• Soroush Data – Nouri was Board Chairman of this company and represented the interests of the IRIB retirement fund. This company, which was founded on August 6, 2007, is a subsidiary of the IRIB-owned Soroush Institute and offers information technology services.

• Bonyad Sepehr Tableegh Novin– Nouri was Vice Chairman of this company, established on September 20, 2020 to “produce and disseminate written, computer, digital, audio, visual, and multimedia products, and [offer] other cultural services,” and “designing, establishing, and implementing cultural and communication centers, systems, and regimes…,” among other things. This bonyad is owned by the IDO, which is one of the several agencies controlled by Ali Khamenei.

The economic news outlet: 90 Eqtesadi 

There is no information available about 90 Eqtesadi on Rooznameh Rasmi. Its website still lists Mohammad Saeed Jabbari as its managing editor. 

As an outlet specializing in economic and business news, the stated intent of “90 Eqtesadi” is to address “the problems and demands of the people … by disregarding the conventions and common considerations of other economic media,” according to its website. Its declared mandate is to monitor analyze and provide fair critiques of governmental and non-governmental organizations, movements, and agencies economic performance. 

While the headlines on “90 Eghtesadi” are not very controversial, the language used in the articles clearly shows their hardline approach. For example, an item from its most viewed section titled “Fear Trafficker” promises to examine “the role of one of the enemy’s infantry soldiers in the economic war waged against the people of Iran.” In another item, the website quotes a member of the Expediency Council Ali Aqa- Mohammadi as saying that Tehran’s unemployment problem is not down to a lack of jobs, but a lack of initiative by job seekers.

The post Who owns Nasim Online and 90 Eghtesadi? appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

Javan newspaper is not only written by and for the Basij militia, but also formally controlled by the IRGC, despite its editor’s denial of the existence of such links. A look at the prior and present board members of Javan newspaper uncovers a cohort of the Islamic Republic’s top spin doctors, including the IRGC commander who helped establish the news agencies Fars, Tasnim and Javan: Hamidreza Moghaddamfar. An analysis of the Rooznameh Rasmi business registry shows that a vast majority of past and present board members of this media organization have been IRGC commanders or individuals employed by the Supreme Leader’s office. 

Javan was established in 1998 under the ownership of the Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz publishing house, which owns the newspaper’s publishing and distribution rights. Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz is a Basij Cooperative Foundation, or Bonyad Taavon Basij (BTB) subsidiary, which in turn is controlled by the IRGC Cooperative Foundation, or Bonyad Taavon Sepah, according to previous reporting by Tehran Bureau.

Abdollah Ganji was the managing editor of Javan from 2013 to 2021, when he became the managing editor of Hamshahri Newspaper, according to various news reports. Notably, Hamshahri is one of the media outlets controlled by the Supreme Leader via his family members, as previously reported by the Tehran Bureau.

In an interview published on October 8, 2019 by Ensaf News, Ganji said that Javan has four sources of revenue: newsstand sales, advertisements, an annual subscription contract with the Basij militia, as well as a publishing house owned by Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz.  

In previous public statements, Ganji denied any “organizational, legal or structural” affiliation with the IRGC, “Because they [the public] see this paper [distributed] among the Basij, they think it belongs to the IRGC,” he told Ensaf News.

However, our investigation shows that several Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz board members have IRGC/Basij service records. Publicly available documents from 2017 show that the institute’s main shareholders are the Basij Cooperative Foundation, or Bonyad Taavon Basij (BTB) and its subsidiary, the Consumer Goods Provision Foundation of Basij Members (Tamin-e Aqlam-e Masrafi-ye Basijian).

The Basij are one of the branches of the IRGC. BTB is a subsidiary of the IRGC Cooperative Foundation, or Bonyad Taavon-e Sepah (BTS). The Basij leadership has almost always comprised of active IRGC members. 

Javan and the Crackdowns

Javan’s political allegiance to the Basij has driven its disinformation campaign against prominent activists and anti-government protesters. The paper routinely targets the U.S.-based feminist Masih Alinejad. An article on February 13 entitled “Confessions of a disillusioned CIA agent” included a photo of Alinejad and claimed she confessed to being a CIA and White House agent. Javan also falsely quoted Alinejad saying the protests, or “riots,” were orchestrated by the United States.

In another piece from February 25, Javan continued to falsely claim the events following Mahsa Amini’s death were part of an enemy conspiracy, that the fatalities sustained by young people did not happen during the protests, and that the victims were deliberately chosen to represent various ethnic minorities to stoke sectarian violence, among other inaccuracies. 

An overview of Javan board members

Mohammad Vadoud Heydari was the CEO of Javan via Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz from at least February 2012 until 2019, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents.

A physician by trade, Heydari is one of the founding members of the Muslim Doctors Without Borders of Iran. In January 2021, when the COVID pandemic in Iran was at its height, Heydari was one of 192 signatories of a letter asking Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei to ban the import of American, British, and French COVID vaccines on ideological grounds. The ban was widely seen as contributing to the nearly 145,000 deaths by the virus in Iran. 

Heydari became head of the Student Basij Organization in September 2013, according to Jahan News and held the position for two years, according to Tasnim News Agency. The Student Basij Organization is headquartered at the site of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran.  

He became head of the Communication and Information Center of the Supreme Leader Representation in Universities organization, or Nahad, in 2016. This organization is charged with delivering PR messages from the Supreme Leader’s Office to higher education institutions. Thus far, there are no announcements about his departure, suggesting that Heydari still holds this position.

In 2016, Heydari was one of the founding members of the hardline Khedmatgozaran Abadi va Pishraft  (Servants of Prosperity and Progress) party which has enjoyed the support of various hardline conservatives. These include Ali Khamenei’s relative Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, Hossein Taeb and  Alireza Panahian. The party also supported candidates like Narjes Soleimani, daughter of the late IRGC General Qassem Soleimani, in the 2021 Tehran city council elections.

He has been a board member of the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order bonyad, or EIKO-owned Barakat Ehsan Foundation since 2020, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents.

Seyyed Nezamoldin Mousavi 

Mousavi is an influential MP for Tehran connected to various Supreme Leader-controlled Bonyads and media organizations such as Fars News and Keyhan, Tehran Bureau’s previous reporting shows. Mousavi was a member of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz’s board of directors from 2012 until 2017, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents. 

Hamidreza Moghaddamfar 

Moghaddamfar is an IRGC commander who helped found the Islamic Republic’s largest hardline-affiliated news outlets. Aside from his position on the board of Javan, which he has held since the newspaper’s founding in 1998, Moghaddamfar served on the board of Fars News Agency during its founding in 2003. He is also a founding executive of Tasnim News, which launched operations in 2012. 

Moghaddamfar is also the culture and media advisor to the IRGC commander-in-chief, according to Mehr News. In addition, he is the deputy head of the Office for the Preservation and Publication of the Supreme Leader’s Works, according to the Hawzah news portal. This organization prints, promotes, and distributes Khamenei’s works. 

He has been on the board of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz since 2012 and is also one of the founding and current board members of Tasnim News Agency. He was the CEO of Fars News Agency in 2012, according to Rooznameh Rasmi. 

Accoriding to Mehr News, he is also the secretary of the People’s Headquarters for Commemoration of Qassem Soleimani.

Seyyed Masoud Jazayeri

Jazayeri is also an IRGC commander. He started his career in Islamic Revolution Committees, the predecessors of the morality police, according to the Islamic Students News Agency. In this role, he dispatched impromptu justice to perceived enemies of the 1979 Revolution in the early years of the regime before joining the IRGC. Jazayeri, an active propagandist, has held various positions in communications. These include a role as the IRGC’s public relations officer and spokesman, member of the IRGC policy office, member of the IRGC Supreme Council, as well as the Supreme Leader’s representative at the IRGC-founded Imam Hossein University. He was appointed the cultural and defense propaganda General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic by Khamenei in 2007 and continues to hold this position.

Jazayeri was a member of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz’s board of directors from 2012 until at least 2018, according to Rooznameh Rasmi. 

Ali Mohammad Naeini 

Naeini is still another IRGC commander who served on the board of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz in 2012, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents. 

Naeini previously sat on the board of Tose Fazahaye Farhangi and the Tehran Municipality’s Cultural & Art Organization when Mohammad- Baqer Qalibaf was mayor. He is currently on the board  of Iran’s National Family Bonyad and recently founded the Sacred Defense of Iran Scientific Association, according to Rooznameh Rasmi. His co-founders include IRGC commanders like Yahya Rahim Safavi and ‌Bahman Kargar, who heads the headquarters of the Rahian-e Noor caravans. In these commemorative tours, regime supporters travel seasonally to the sites of Iran-Iraq war battles in southern Iran.

According to Tasnim News, he is also head of the Headquarters for the Commemoration of 9 Dey (December 30). These pro-government rallies celebrate the crushing of the 2009 Green Movement uprising.

Behrouz Esbati 

Esbati is yet another IRGC commander. He was chairman of the board of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz in 2012, according to Rooznameh Rasmi. He was previously the head of the Office for the Coordination of National Cyberspace and Armed Forces and is currently head of the Armed Forces Cyberspace Headquarters, according to Tasnim News. 

Javad Jabbari 

Jabbari is another IRGC commander who was on the board of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz in 2012 until at least 2018, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents. , According to the Tabnak news agency, Jabbari was the head of Ravayat Fath Bonyad (Chronicles of Victory Foundation) until 2017. This foundation makes documentaries about the Iraq-Iran War and other propaganda. 

Jabbari was also one of the producers of a controversial movie called Golden Collars, according to the culture-focused CinemaPress.ir. This propaganda film about the 2009 protests portrayed demonstrators as Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) agents sent to destabilize Iran. Abolqasem Talebi, the director, claimed on Twitter, that the Supreme Leader’s Office had contacted him to say Khamenei “watched the movie a second time.” 

Mohammad Javad Akhavan 

Akhavan is the current CEO and managing editor of Javan, having replaced Abdollah Ganji in 2021. His inauguration ceremony was attended by some of the regime’s top propagandists including:

 • Sepehr Khalaji, the Supreme Leader’s Office director of public relations

• Abdollah Zeighami, deputy commander of the IRGC media headquarters also known as the Islamic Revolution Media Front headquarters

• Abdolreza Azadi, and IRGC commander and deputy director of the Basij Art and Culture division

Abdollah Zeighami

Abdollah Zeighami has been in charge of the IRGC psyops HQ, according to documents first publicized by the Al Arabiya Farsi news portal. In 2009, he was deputy commander of the Thar-Allah Headquarters, according to Deutsche Welle’s Farsi-language news portal. The headquarters is in charge of security in Tehran. He played an important role in crushing the protests that took place in response to the contested presidential election that year. 

Sepehr Khalaji

Sepehr Khalaji, who has a doctorate in communications, was the Supreme Leader’s Office director of public relations for 12 years and had previously been one of the top executives at the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). This year, he was appointed President Ebrahim Raisi’s chief government speaker.

Abdolreza Azadi

Azadi is an IRGC commander and deputy director of the Basij Art and Culture division. Until recently, he was also the chairman of the board of Payam Avaran Nashr Rouz, according to this Rooznameh Rasmi document. Azadi has served on the board of Basij Cooperative Foundation (BTB), which is a BTS subsidiary, as well as a host of BTB companies such as Razmandegan-e Islam Arts and Culture Organization,  Razmandegan-e Islam Scientific and Education Services Institute, Monadian Basirat Institute and Razmandegan-e Islam Scientific and Education Services Institute.

Monadian Basirat Institute produces propagandistic video games such as “Commander of the Resistance: Amerli Battle” about Qassem Soleimani, Sniper: Golden Eagle, and The Epic of Nader.  

Seyyed Yaser Jebraeili

Jebraeili is credited as the person who developed President Ebrahim Raisi’s economic policy. He is currently the deputy director of the Center for Evaluation and Strategic Monitoring of the Islamic Republic’s General Policies at the Expediency Council. He was also the training and research deputy for Fars News Agency from at least 2013 to 2017, according to news reports. Jebraeili has been a vocal opponent of the previous administration’s efforts to adopt the Financial Action Task Force action plan, which aims to stymie money laundering and terrorism financing, telling Tejarat news that Iran could only adopt the plan “If there were no sanctions and if resistance groups were exempt from terrorist groups.”

The post The IRGC’s Media Trifecta Part 2: Javan Daily appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

Hover and click on any flag in the interactive map below, and you will see a popup of a satellite image of the military installation located there and a summary of its function.

According to open-source information, the Islamic Republic oversees the training and operations of around 80,000 militia—both Iranian and mercenary forces—who are scattered in military installations throughout Syria. Most of these installations are preexisting military structures that used to be operated by the Syrian military before being partially or wholly handed over to Iranian forces. This process began during Syria’s civil war to facilitate Iranian support for Assad’s military efforts. There are also reports that Iran has built at least one major military base from scratch inside Syrian territory.

Overview of Iran’s Military Bases in Syria

In 2014, Assad gave Iranian forces permission to use as IRGC headquarters a hotel near the Damascus International Airport, a structure dubbed the “Glass House.” The Israeli air force later targeted the structure with airstrikes, which prompted Iranian forces to shift the weight of their Syria headquarters elsewhere, mainly to the T4/Altyas military airport in the north and the Imam Ali base situated to the east, near the Iraqi border.

In 2015, Iranian forces began constructing what is believed to be the first Iranian structure built from scratch inside Syria, mostly below ground. It is operated by the Quds Force and connected by road to the Iranian-run T4/Altyas Airport base. This makes it a vital transportation point for personnel and material from Iran, Iraq, and other mercenary recruitment centers such as those in Afghanistan.

Regional Commands of Iranian Forces Inside Syria

In order to help bolster Assad’s forces in other parts of Syria, Iranian forces have organized their military command by region as follows:

Aleppo Region: In 2015, the IRGC began overseeing military operations from Jabal Azzan Base to bolster Assad forces in and around Aleppo province. The Iranian-backed militias that fought in this region include Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Nujaba Movement, the Afghan Fatimiyoun Brigade, and the Palestinian Jerusalem Brigade.

Southern Provinces: Al Seen Airport Base, along with Kiswa outpost, both oversee Iranian-backed militia known to operate in Syria’s southern provinces. These militias include Iranian Jaafari Forces, Lebanese Hezbollah, Syrian Baqer militia, and Afghan Fatimid Brigade as well as multiple Iraqi militias: Sayed al Shuhada, Abu Fadel Abbas, and the Abdal Movement. 

Central Provinces: The Shayrat Airbase serves as a forward operating base for Iranian materiel and personnel in support of Iranian-backed militia throughout Syria’s central region.

Lebanese Hizbollah Liaison Outpost: The Qusair Base, which sits near the Lebanese border, serves mostly as a Hezbollah military base in Syria and a liaison point with Iranian forces.

Additionally, there are two main underground Iranian-operated outposts that sit farther to the west, in proximity to the Russian navy base in the Syrian port city of Tartous. They are:

Jabal Maerin: An Iranian military base that is said to be buried almost entirely under a hill.

Jabal Zein al Abidin: An Iranian military and communications outpost that sits next to a Shia shrine 600 meters above sea level. It is said to house a joint-operational room staffed by both Syrian forces and the IRGC.

How we conducted our research:

Our first step in gathering information for this story came from scouring the internet for open-source material, including the list of websites provided below. After examining this information and tracing it back to its original sources, we determined that much of it originated from Syrian opposition figures, including the rebels who at times engaged militarily with the Iranian-backed forces listed throughout this story. Some information about Iranian-backed military bases also became publicly available after airstrikes were carried out against them. To corroborate the existence of these military installations, we then searched Google Earth by specific locations and/or coordinates and found the satellite images featured in our interactive map. We have only included the military installations that we could confidently verify in this way. To bolster our reporting on this sensitive story, we also interviewed (on background) several Western military experts who corroborated our overall findings.

Here’s a list of the main open sources that we credit for this research:

• www.iamhumanstory.com
• www.orient-news.net
• www.harmoon.org
• https://external-preview.redd.it
• www.thenational.ae
• www.reuters.com
• www.almodon.com
• www.crisisgroup.org
• www.aljazeera.net

The post Iran’s Military Assets Inside Syria appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

Hamid Aslani, chairman of the board of the Mahan Safir Mehr airline services firm and a long-time IRGC commander, was recently appointed to the position of  Majles executive deputy. Aslani’s new post puts him in charge of “planning and taking action within the framework of the legislative structure outlined by” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Given responsibility for “organizing the bureaucratic and financial structure of the Majles,” he has wide-ranging authority, including “improving the quality of its infrastructure using new technologies and improving the use of human resources,” “financial discipline,” “Majles security,” “completing the Majles expansion project,” and “providing services to lawmakers.”

Over the course of his military career, Aslani served as deputy commander of the 31st Ashura Brigade (now 31st Ashura Division) operating in the provinces of East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, and Ardabil, and the 38th Zulfaqar Armored Brigade, which operates in Kerman. He has held many other titles, including deputy coordinator—and later, head of planning—for IRGC ground forces, executive deputy of the IRGC Command, head of the Sacred Defense Documents and Research Center, vice chairman of the IRGC Retirees Institute (roughly equivalent to the US Veterans Administration), and member of the board of trustees of the Sacred Defense Military Hospitals.

Aslani’s appointment further cements the IRGC’s hold over the parliament, underscored by the election last year of Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf as Majles speaker. Qalibaf, whose military service dates back to the war with Iraq, headed  the IRGC’s Khatam-al Anbia Headquarters (1994–97) and commanded the IRGC Air Force (1997–2000). Since the turn of the century, he has served as Tehran’s police chief (2000–5)—the last six men to hold the position have all been Guard members—and then mayor (2005–17). 

Qalibaf has maintained close ties with the Revolutionary Guards, often appointing his associates in the corps to positions of power within the institutions he has headed or by directing lucrative contracts under his purview to IRGC-owned entities. That tradition continues in his new parliamentary fiefdom.

Aslani, Soleimani, and the IRGC Business Network

Aslani is known for having even firmer ties with an even more prominent IRGC leader: Iranian media have described him as “one of Qasem Soleimani’s friends and close companions.” His name along with Soleimani’s appears on the board of an organization named Ayta Salehin, which was set up in Kerman, the late Quds Force commander’s hometown, for “charity and charitable work.”  

Aslani has held a variety of positions with Mahan Air, which has been sanctioned by the US Treasury since 2011 “for providing financial, material and technological support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF).” He has been Mahan’s director of human resources and formerly served alongside Qasem Soleimani’s brother Sohrab on the board of a Mahan subsidiary called Pardis Parham Kish. Like other firms with close ties to Iran’s ruling elite, Pardis Parham Kish has a “pre-emption right” which grants it vast license to cherry-pick nominally competitive contracts and other business opportunities.

Mahan Safir Mehr Co., the Mahan subsidiary whose board Aslani currently chairs, transports flight crews to and from their airports, offers customs services, and has import-export and construction and rehabilitation operations.

Aslani has also been a board member of multiple entities controlled by the massive Sepah Cooperative Foundation (Bonyad Taavon Sepah, or BTS), the IRGC’s primary para-governmental foundation, under whose umbrella Khatam-al Anbia operates. Among the BTS subsidiary boards on which Aslani has served are those of Behsaz Bana Gostar Saman (now dissolved), an industrial equipment and technical installation firm, and Paravar Pars Co., which produces gyroplanes, powered hang gliders, and drones, according to its website. He was also a board member of Resalat Salehin Tehran Qardh al-Hasan Fund, which is one the three funds that in 2012 merged to create Resalat Bank.

The post IRGC Amassing Power in Parliament appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

In Iran, pharmaceuticals are more profitable than oil. The government provides huge subsidies to pharmaceutical firms who manufacture drugs and supplies, yet patients still lack drugs to treat long-term health conditions such as hypertension or diabetes, or they are confronted with a shortage of basic supplies such as face masks and hand sanitizers. Many Iranians struggle to find medication free of needless side effects like dizziness, nausea or, in some cases, even cancer.

The government invests heavily in pharmaceuticals, providing millions of subsidized dollars to local drug companies that import raw material from international suppliers. One analysis of Central Bank information, published by Iran Open Data, shows that approximately one-fifth of the $43.8 billion in government-subsidized dollars earmarked for the import of essential goods – nearly $9 billion – went to pharmaceutical companies in the past two years.

This money is not trickling down to consumers who, incidentally, often report severe reactions to domestically produced drugs that are supposed to treat common medical conditions. Another frequent complaint is price gouging, as consumers find themselves paying up to three times¹ more than the officially listed price for domestically produced drugs of questionable quality.

One pharmaceutical company, Cobel Darou, recently received $371.8 million at the government-set preferential rate of 4200 tomans. Dollars have become hard to come by, and the real market value of this currency in Iran is nearly four times that. The government’s stated intention is to help the pharmaceutical companies buy raw materials abroad without having to cope with inflation locally. But without transparency and independent oversight, the investment has only encouraged corruption as well as potentially devastating effects on public health.

Enter the Bonyads

The well-oiled network of government employees who have conflicting ownership interests allows millions of dollars intended for the production of essential drugs to instead flow into private pockets. Over the past decade, sanctions have made foreign drugs difficult to import, which has led to a spike in demand for Iranian drugs. This made domestic drug production a profitable venture for Iranian firms², attracting the attention of state-linked conglomerates, or bonyads.

As with other lucrative sectors, the bonyads achieved dominance over the pharmaceutical industry through forcible takeovers. Successful, formerly private companies such as Daana Pharmaceuticals³. The revenue of drug producer Actover Co, for instance, in 1394 doubled to the previous year, 1393., are now controlled by one of several major bonyads.

The Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO ) and its subsidiary, the Barakat Pharmaceutical Group control most of the sector, which comprises of 27 pharmaceutical companies, including household brands such as Iran Darou, Alborz Darou, Atipharmed and Tolid Darou.

EIKO companies received $275.6 million in a preferential currency over the past two years, our analysis of Central Bank data shows.

The social security company Tamin-owned conglomerate Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Co  (TPICO) owns at least 30 pharmaceutical and drug industry companies. Tamin, also known as Shasta, is government-owned but also co-owns companies along with the Armed Forces (Shahid Ghazi Pharmaceutical Co), the IRGC’s Sepah Cooperative Foundation and EIKO (Farabi Pharmaceuticals, Razak Labs), among other bonyads.

All the Minister’s People

Aside from bonyads, another important link in the chain of corruption is Iran’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a regulatory body overseen by the Ministry of Health.  Last summer, FDA officials were arrested on charges of financial corruption, misuse of public funds and importation of expired pharmaceuticals.

The arrests were part of a purge led by Health Minister Saeed Namaki. He publicly portrayed himself as a crusader against a ring of corruption in the pharmaceutical industry, which is led by powerful individuals who authorize any deal with a “golden signature.” However, as we will discuss below, Namaki himself is connected to an embezzlement scandal in the pharmaceutical sector. At the FDA, he continues to employ individuals with conflicts of interest, including these two  recent hires:

Mohammad Reza Shanesaz: Head of Iran’s FDA, he was appointed by Namaki on June 4, 2019. Shanesaz was formerly the head of TPICO, Tamin’s pharmaceutical holding, and sat on the board of Darou Pakhsh and Chlor Pars Co (both Tamin companies). He is on the board of bonyad Astan Qods Razavi-owned Yara Teb Samen and Samen Pharmaceutical company.

Mahnaz Khanavi: The Director-General of the Natural and Traditional Products, she also supplements the office of the FDA. Despite having an official government position, Khanavi is the board chairman of the EIKO-owned Herbi Pharmed Co., which specializes in medicinal plants and traditional medicine. She is one of the founding members of Atlas Darouye Iranian (ADI), which produces natural and synthetic supplements. 

Abbas Haji Akhoundi: Another example of conflict of interest associated with Atlas Darouye Iranian is its founding member, Abbas Haji Akhoundi. ADI was founded in 2011. Haji Akhoundi was the head of the National Headquarters of the Development of Medicinal Plants and Traditional Medicine until 2012 and was appointed as head of the FDA in  2013. Public records show Akhoundi remains on the ADI board. 

CASE STUDY: 

Cancer Cells: Why regulators looked the other way while a well-connected company sold toxic drugs?

Iran’s government is distributing subsidized dollars to pharmaceutical companies, many of which are linked to bonyads and state-owned enterprises. Instead of importing world-class medicine, the companies pocket the cash or speculate with it on the domestic market while allocating a minimal amount of it to produce low-quality pharmaceuticals. Public records show that Namaki is a stakeholder in the companies that stand to profit from these practices, putting him in conflict with any attempt to reform these corrupt practices. 

One of the most publicized corruption scandals involving the pharmaceutical industry has been the case of Actover Co., a company whose domestically produced drug Losartan was discovered to cause cancer. The scandal involves the businesswoman Nahaleh Naraqi with financial ties to Spain, Switzerland, as well as the health ministry. This example demonstrates how conflicts of interest at the health ministry lead to abuse of power at the expense of public health.

Losartan, a drug used to treat hypertension, is produced by eight Iranian companies who import the raw materials from various international vendors. Hetero, a multinational which produced the raw materials for the drug, issued a worldwide recall for Losartan in January 2019, warning of its potential cancer-causing effects. On July 4, 2019, a report published in the newspaper Shargh accused Iran’s FDA of allowing Losartan to remain on the market for six months after the recall. Subsequent reports suggested the FDA was trying to protect the private business interests of its employees.

Hetero is an Indian company with 36 production plants worldwide, including in the United States. Of the eight Iranian companies that produce Losartan, only one company, Actover, was found to be producing a tainted version of the drug, according to a report by the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA). 

Actover spokespeople distanced themselves from the company after the recall, but our investigation found extensive links between Iranian drug companies linked to Naraqi and Hetero’s Indian owners.

Actover, which is linked to the bonyad EIKO, received 163 million Euro in subsidized currency over the past two years, according to Central Bank of Iran (CBI) data. In 2019, CBI chief Abdolnaser Hemmati announced that Actover had failed to account for 25.5 million Euro of this subsidy.  

Various unconfirmed rumors published by Iranian media suggested that Naraqi eventually returned to Iran (she had previously left the country under mysterious circumstances in the wake of the scandal). Public business records show that she has been able to continue at least some of her business activities. On May 3, Naraqi established a new company, Ide Pardazan Kara Tak, which she renamed Acto Tech eight days later, according to public business records. The company was established to “create a technical fund”, according to its founding charter, and  to “invest in domestic startups”  while “investing in creative projects and teams abroad.”

Aside from founding at least seven Iranian companies, Naraqi has an extensive network abroad. Public ownership records link her to drug companies based in Spain, Switzerland and India. Her son, Xerxes Augustus, lives in Spain but travels to Iran regularly. Naraqi was a member of the Iran-Spain friendship association, of which the health minister is also a former member, according to public records.

The health ministry, under the leadership of Saeed Namaki, has pledged to combat price gouging, foreign currency hoarding and other malpractices linked to Naraqi’s companies⁴. However, an examination of people linked to Naraqi through beneficial ownership shows that Namaki and the bonyad EIKO have shared ownership of Naraqi’s companies. Namaki is co-founder of Tropical Industries Kish, a pharmaceutical company in which Naraqi is also an executive. The most current public records indicate that both Namaki and Naraqi continue to be stakeholders in the company. Health ministry spokespeople could not be reached for further comment.

The Iranian media is divided on the issue of the health minister’s involvement. Some reports suggest Namaki’s conflict of interest gave him a reason to stall the FDA investigation of Actover. Other reports claim that Namaki came under fire only after he launched an anti-corruption purge at the FDA and the health ministry and that he was the target of a campaign led by the old guard to discredit him. 

The special treatment Naraqi has enjoyed despite the criminal charges against her suggests that the appearance of fighting corruption is only skin deep. Such “crusades” seem to be simply a way for political-business empires to compete with one another in acquiring the state funds that flow  without accountability into the pharmaceutical industry.

The post Iran’s Big Pharma Leaves Patients in a Bind appeared first on Tehran Bureau.

Rezaei’s son Ali has stakes in several sports associations, as does Rezaei’s business associate Yazdan Moayedinia. But the man with the most sports connections is Rezaei’s brother Omidvar Rezaei Mirqaed, who has his hands in:

• The Ministry of Sports and Youth: Omidvar is advisor to the Minister.
• Parliament: Omidvar headed the Majles Sports Committee from 2008- 2012. This parliamentary grouping uncovered widespread corruption in Iranian football in 2014, when Omidvar was no longer its chairman. 
• A Regulatory body: Omidvar is Chairman of the Sports and Culture Commission of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.

Omidvar’s positions in these government and regulatory bodies poses conflicts of interests with his other activities, including in the following major sporting associations: 

• A national football club: Omidvar is the board chairman of high-profile Tehran-based club Esteqlal and their representative in the Iranian Football Federation.
• Official sports medicine: Omidvar is an executive board member of the Iranian Sports Medicine Federation 
• Wrestling: Omidvar is Vice Chairman of the Cuxe Wrestling Federation
• Olympics: Omidvar is a member of the Medical Commission of the National Olympics Committee 

By trade, Omidvar is a medical doctor who studied under Professor Majid Samii and established Professor Samii’s International Health Institute in Tehran, where he is board chairman. (Tehran MP Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf’s family-controlled foundation, the Imam Reza Charity, is building a hospital for Samii.) Omidvar Rezaei has used funds provided by Bonyad Mostazafan and Tamin organization to create another Samii Teaching Hospital, according to Mehr News. There has been no public query or oversight over such funding. Noteworthy of mention, Omidvar has been MP in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Majles.

Martial Arts

Another sports enthusiast in the family is Mohsen Rezaei’s son Ali Rezaei Mirqaed, who previously played for Esteqlal, the football team his uncle Omidvar Rezaei controls, according to Asr-e Iran newspaper. 

Aside from his posts in business and politics, Ali was a directors board member of the Martial Arts Federation of Iran. He unsuccessfully tried to secure a position in Iran’s Golf Federation, according to Serat News. 

The third clan member with interests in sports is Mohsen Rezaei’s business associate Yazdan Moayedinia, an IRGC luminary who has been the Vice Chairman of the Taekwondo Federation since 2014.

Iran has brought home 14 gold medals from World Taekwondo Championships and a total of 57 medals, standing 5th in the all-time world rankings. Yet at a domestic level, competitors have reported corruption in the highest echelons of the sport. A regular competitor in domestic competitions told Doublethink that there is high competition turnover, but that many training facilities still lack basic standard equipment. Our source also questioned the independence of referees and accused Moayedinia of having “no expertise.” 

Moayedinia is connected to Mohsen Rezaei through the Sobh Qarib Iranian Foundation, of which Moayedinia is vice chairman while Rezaei is the chairman. Moayedinia was the former commander of the Seyyed ol-Shohada Corps’ 10th Brigade. Moayedinia is a close friend of the former commander-in-chief of the IRGC Mohammad Ali Jafari (2007-2019), according to Mashregh News, and was Jafari’s chief of staff. 

The Complete Network of Mohsen Rezaei

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