Commander: IRGC Assigned to Protect Iranian VIPs

A senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said the IRGC has been assigned with protecting important Iranian figures since a number of Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated a few year ago.
“The enemy has hatched many plots against the Islamic Republic after the victory of Islamic Revolution, the most important of which was the assassination of figures, bombings and the (Iraqi) imposed war (against Iran 1980-1988),” Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC Corps for Protection Brigadier General Mohammad Hassan Kazzemi said in a press conference in Tehran on Wednesday.

He underlined the IRGC’s important role in protecting the Iranian VIPs and preventing attacks against them, and said, “After the assassination of the nuclear scientists, the IRGC was assigned with protecting important persons and we have witnessed that after this order, no successful assassination has been staged, and if any assassination has taken place, the IRGC has not been assigned with protecting the life of that person.”

Western spy agencies, collaborated by the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), have assassinated several Iranian scientists in the last four years.

In the fifth attack of its kind, terrorists killed a 32-year-old Iranian scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, and his driver on January 11, 2012.

The blast took place on the second anniversary of the martyrdom of Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, who was also assassinated in a terrorist bomb attack in Tehran in January 2010.

The assassination method used in the bombing was similar to the 2010 terrorist bomb attacks against the then university professor, Fereidoun Abbassi Davani – the former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization – and his colleague Majid Shahriari. While Abbasi Davani survived the attack, Shahriari was martyred.

Another Iranian scientist, Dariush Rezaeinejad, was also assassinated through the same method on 23 July 2011.

Iran announced in June, 2012 that its intelligence forces have identified and arrested all terrorist elements behind the assassination of the country’s nuclear scientists.

“All the elements involved in the assassinations of the country’s nuclear scientists have been identified and arrested,” Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced in a statement at the time.

A number of countries, whose territories and facilities had been misused by the Mossad-backed terrorist teams, have provided Iranian officials with relevant information, the statement added.

Over the course of the investigations, all other elements behind the assassination of Iranian scientists Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, Majid Shahriari and Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan as well as Reza Qashqaei (Roshan’s driver) have been apprehended, the statement read.

Some of the perpetrators of the assassination of Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi are among those arrested, the ministry added.

The statement said Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has detected some of Mossad’s bases within the territories of one of Iran’s Western neighbors, which provided training and logistic support to the terrorist networks.

Also in June, former Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi had announced that the country’s security forces have arrested at least 20 terrorists behind the assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists.

Moslehi stated that the arrests were made following the identification of two terrorist groups and through multiple sting operations across the country.