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Proxy Power: Understanding Iran’s Use of Terrorism
Daniel L. BymanWednesday, July 26, 2006



Iran and Syria, Hezbollah’s foreign sponsors, may hold the key to resolving the violence in Lebanon, or they may play a part in the escalation of the conflict. Syria has received the lion’s share of international attention, but Tehran’s role in supporting Hezbollah and other terrorist groups is also crucial. Even though Iran is hundreds of miles away from Lebanon, it helped nurture Hezbollah in its early years and even today exercises considerable ideological and operational influence. The Lebanese terrorist organization is the most deadly creation of the clerical regime in Tehran, but it is only one of the many groups that Iran supports. Confusing this picture further, Tehran’s backing of terrorist groups has changed considerably in the last decade.

After the 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran used a wide range of terrorist organizations to export its revolution and to assassinate Iranian dissidents around the globe. Tehran played a major role in forming Hezbollah and helping it conduct attacks in Lebanon, including such devastating strikes as the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks and embassy, which together killed more than 300 people. Indeed, before 9/11, Hezbollah had killed more Americans than any other international terrorist organization. Iranian-backed groups also regularly attacked dissidents in Europe, countries that backed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, and the governments of pro-Western Arab states. Ten years ago, on June 26, 1996, Iranian-backed terrorists exploded a massive truck bomb outside the Khobar Towers military housing project in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans and one Saudi and wounding almost 400.

On the surface, not much seems to have changed with regard to Iran and terrorism in the last 10 years. The U.S. State Department still lists Iran as the world’s “most active” state sponsor of terrorism, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regularly fulminates against Israel and sings the praises of groups like Hamas.

Today, as the latest round of violence suggests, Israel is the biggest target of Iranian-backed terrorism, with Tehran supporting several Palestinian groups as well as Lebanese Hezbollah. These groups’ attacks against Israel serve three purposes: They support Iranian leaders’ opposition to the existence of the Jewish state; they give Iran prestige in the Muslim world; and by keeping violence alive, they undermine the peace process (admittedly, an easy task these days), which in turn reduces the chances that Iran will be isolated in the Middle East.

Although evidence is lacking, past behavior suggests that Hezbollah wouldn’t conduct an operation as significant as the July 12 kidnappings without Tehran’s approval. Indeed, the close ties between Hezbollah and Iran’s theocrats have probably emboldened the former. Even if Israel manages to destroy much of Hezbollah’s missiles and facilities, Iran will replenish its stocks. But Hezbollah is more than an instrument of Iranian foreign policy. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, enjoys far more prestige in the Arab world than any of Iran’s current leaders. What’s more, the organization’s increased strength in Lebanon since the Syrian withdrawal has boosted its confidence.

While Iran’s backing of anti-Israel violence has grown in recent years, it has cut back its interference in other parts of the world. Attacks on dissidents have decreased significantly since the mid-’90s, and Iran appears to have tempered its enthusiasm for exporting revolution. Most important, Tehran has not struck at the United States directly in the last decade. Iran has a healthy respect for U.S. military power, and after 1996 its leaders appeared to realize that the United States might be able to use additional Iranian terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities to gain international support for comprehensive sanctions on the regime. Sky-high oil prices and a new set of Iranian leaders who are less interested in international investment have lessened U.S. economic clout, but Tehran has remained cautious about direct attacks on the United States.

Iran instead uses terrorism as a way to deter Washington. Terrorists give Tehran a way to strike at the United States in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. Iran has cased U.S. embassies around the world and has off-the-shelf options for striking American targets. Washington recognizes that if it pushes Iran’s leaders, they can push back. Terrorism thus complicates U.S. planning for stopping Iran’s nuclear program and other top priorities.

The extent and nature of Iran’s contacts with Sunni jihadist groups linked to al-Qaida is unclear. Immediately after 9/11, Iran appeared to be cooperating with the United States and its allies, transferring many jihadists to their home countries to face justice. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and U.S. refusal to turn over anti-Iranian terrorists of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization—a terrorist group that mixes Marxism and Islam and fought on the side of Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war—Tehran became more recalcitrant. Several senior al-Qaida figures, including Osama Bin Laden’s son Saad, are in Iran, and some reports linked them to May 2003 attacks in Saudi Arabia. Iran claims to have the Sunni extremists under close watch, but the refusal to turn them in suggests that Tehran at least wants to use them as a bargaining chip and at most wants the option of a partnership should tension with Washington grow.

Iran could also use terrorism to raise the heat on the U.S. presence in Iraq. Iranian intelligence officials are active throughout Iraq but, for now, they have caused only limited problems for the United States. After all, the Shiite leadership taking power in Baghdad includes many leaders with close ties to Tehran. Still, the large U.S. presence leaves the United States vulnerable to Iranian-inspired violence. Iranian commentators speak openly about holding thousands of hostages in Iraq, suggesting that they view the troops as more of an opportunity than a threat. Even a small number of additional trained and motivated fighters could greatly complicate already dimming U.S. hopes of imposing order in Iraq, particularly as they would be likely to strike in Shiite parts of Iraq, where U.S. forces are particularly thin.

An Iranian-backed terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland is less likely but far from impossible. In the past, Tehran’s leaders, often as prudent in policy as they are scathing in rhetoric, recognized that killing Americans in Saudi Arabia or other countries overseas was less risky than a strike on U.S. soil—a caution no doubt reinforced by U.S. regime-change efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the FBI has uncovered Hezbollah cells dedicated to fund raising in the United States, and it is reasonable to suppose that additional cells or at least individual operatives might have slipped beneath the bureau’s radar screen.

Support for terrorism offers Iran what it craves most today: options. Iran is at best a middleweight economic power, and its military is in a state of disrepair. Terrorism, however, gives Iran a role in the fight against Israel, a strong voice in Iraq’s future, and a way to deter the United States. In the end, Iran may decide to push Hezbollah away from the brink or to be a constructive player in Iraq. But as the American track record of predicting Iranian moves ranges from poor to abysmal, we must recognize that Iran’s ties to terrorist groups also give Tehran options to escalate such conflicts.
 
I know about that funny referendum.
that referendum was British plan to destroy India.
And you know better than me that referendum wasn't about joining Pakistan.
They asked from Muslim people do you Vote for Quran or not. and when they vote for Quran. British thugs assume that mean they want to be with new British creature in the same country.
Same thing happen for balouch people.

What a load of crap, instead of exposing your lack of knowledge, please do research and then post things.

You said 100,000 pakhtoons live in Iran so we are not outsiders.
While British (old fox) is outsider.

You are outsider, you are not Pukhtoon, you are not Pakistani or Afghan.
 
IRAN PUBLICLY HANGS MAN ON HOMOSEXUALITY CHARGES
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
435081

People stage a mock hanging as they protest outside German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin February 4, 2013, where Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi's was due to deliver a speech.. (photo credit:" THOMAS PETER/REUTERS)
Iranian media reported that the 31-year-old kidnapped two 15-year-olds.
The Islamic Republic of Iran publicly hanged a 31-year-old Iranian man after he was found guilty of charges related to violations of Iran’s anti-gay laws, according to the state-controlled Iranian Students’ News Agency.

The unidentified man was hanged on January 10 in the southwestern city of Kazeroon based on criminal violations of “lavat-e be onf” – sexual intercourse between two men, as well as kidnapping charges, according to ISNA. Iran’s radical sharia law system prescribes the death penalty for gay sex.

The ISNA reported that the 31-year-old kidnapped two 15-year-olds. The opaque inner workings of Iran’s judicial system create enormous difficulties for journalists and human rights advocates to examine judicial cases.

“The LGBT community in Iran has lived in terror for the last 40 years,” said Alireza Nader, CEO of Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization New Iran. “Next time Foreign Minister Zarif speaks in Washington, the host and audience should ask him why his regime is one of the top executioner of gays in the world.”



According to a 2008 British WikiLeaks dispatch, Iran’s mullah regime executed “between 4,000 and 6,000 gays and lesbians” since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

“Iran is not only the most dangerous threat to Israel’s security, it is also a champion in the state murder of actual or perceived homosexuals,” said Volker Beck, a German Party Green Party politician and a lecturer at the Center for Studies in Religious Sciences (CERES) at the Ruhr University in Bochum. “It would be desirable for the federal government to make Iran’s human rights violations more of an issue.”

Beck played a key role in bringing about marriage equality in Germany for gays and lesbians.



Germany is slated to appoint a banker, who would work in France, to administer a financial mechanism to bypass US sanctions against Iran’s regime. The EU seeks to circumvent US sanctions against Iran to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal. The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018 because of its alleged deficiencies, including the regime’s destabilizing policies in the Middle East. The US government has highlighted the widespread human rights violations in Iran.

Kazeroon is the capital of Kazeroon County, where the execution of the 31-year-old man was carried out, and is located in Fars Province, Iran. The city has population of 143,869 as of 2017. The ISNA report said “the citizens of Kazeroon expressed satisfaction and thanked the judiciary.” The statement about citizens of Kazeroon could not be independently verified.

In 2016, The Jerusalem Post reported Iran’s regime had executed a gay adolescent that year – the first confirmed execution of someone convicted as a juvenile in the Islamic Republic.

Hassan Afshar, 19, was hanged in Arak Prison in Iran’s Markazi Province on July 18, 2016, after he was convicted of “forced male-to-male anal intercourse” in early 2015.

In 2011, Iran’s regime executed three Iranian men after being found guilty of charges related to homosexuality.

Axel M. Hochrein, a spokesman for the Hirschfeld-Eddy-Stiftung Foundation, which fights to advance the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, told the Post:

“Iran is one of the worst states for the persecution of LGBTI. The state publicly and regularly boasts of the execution of gay men. The ability to influence the Iranian regime regarding inhuman violations of human rights is very limited because of the isolated situation in the country. Therefore, our foundation calls for increased efforts by the international community to help LGBTI people escape and provide safe asylum.”
 
Actually I should say that.

this is exactly your sentence



I always thought Afghanistan call those lands as part of Afghanistan !!!!

pakhtoons belong to Afghanistan not Pakistan.
Kid how old are you? Might want to educate yourself first. One Pakistani city alone has twice as many Pakhtoons as all of Afghanistan. Those were always our lands.
Also what Iranian calls Pakhtoons, pathan?
 
What a load of crap, instead of exposing your lack on knowledge, please do research and then post things.



You are outsider, you are not Pukhtoon, you are not Pakistani or Afghan.
so, do you say what I read that referendum was about voting for Quran is wrong.
 
You said 100,000 pakhtoons live in Iran so we are not outsiders.
While British (old fox) is outsider.
You are an outsider, farsiwan. Pakhtoons have always been at war with you. Dont make use burn your capital again
 
Kid how old are you? Might want to educate yourself first. One Pakistani city alone has twice as many Pakhtoons as all of Afghanistan. Those were always our lands.
Also what Iranian calls Pakhtoons, pathan?
bhai tu is kaa avatar check kar. lol.
 
Iran and state-sponsored terrorism

Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the government of Iran has been accused by several countries, including the United States, of funding, providing equipment, weapons, training and giving sanctuary to terrorists.[1]Iran has been accused of training, financing, and providing weapons and safe havens for non-state militant actors, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other Palestinian groups (Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC)). These groups are designated terrorist groupsby a number of countries and international bodies; however, Iran considers such groups to be "national liberation movements" with a right to self-defense in the face of Israeli military occupation.[2] The United States State Department has also accused Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias of terrorism against US troops, and Iran of cyberterrorism, primarily through its Quds Force.[3]


Islamic Revolutionary Guard CorpsEdit

After the fall of the Shah in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran established the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to domestically promote the government's social policy. IRGC is accused of spreading its ideology in neighboring regions by training and funding "terrorist organizations". By 1986, IRGC had 350,000 members and had acquired a small naval and air force. By 1996, its ground forces numbered 100,000 and the naval forces numbered 20,000. They are believed to use the Quds Force to train Islamic militants.[4]

In 1995, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard held a conference with worldwide organizations accused of engaging in terrorism including the Japanese Red Army, the Armenian Secret Army, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Iraqi Da'wah Party, the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain and Hezbollah in Beirutfor the sole purpose of providing training to these organizations supposedly to help in the destabilization of Gulf States and aid assistance to militants in these countries to replace the existing governments with Iran-like regimes.[5]

The United States State Department states that IRGC provides support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Israel. They also say that IRGC has given much support and training to terrorists supporting the Palestinian resistance. They are also accused of aiding the Iraqi insurgency in southern Iraq.[5] On September 26, 2007, the United States Senate passed legislation by a vote of 76-22 designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.[6] U.S. President George W. Bushand Congress labeled the group under the guidelines established by Executive Order 13224 issued after the September 11, 2001 attacks.[7]
 
You are an outsider, farsiwan. Pakhtoons have always been at war with you. Dont make use burn your capital again
And pathans always were part of Iranian empires.
You are Iranian people both linguistically and genetically.
Sadly, Wahabism and Saudi money totally brained wash you guys.
 
US: Iran still the 'leading state sponsor of terror'

Annual State Department report admonishes Tehran for assisting 'terrorists' as attacks down for second year in a row.

19 Sept 2018 GMT+3
Iran remains the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism with funding networks and operational cells working around the world, a US government report said.
 
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