Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Apr. 10 A radical Islamist with a dark and chequered past has been appointed Irans defence attaché in the Balkans, the state-run daily Etemaad Meli reported on Monday. Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 10 A radical Islamist with a dark and chequered past has been appointed Irans defence attaché in the Balkans, the state-run daily Etemaad Meli reported on Monday.
Hossein Allahkaram, a brigadier general in Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, will serve as defence attaché in the Balkans for four years, the daily quoted an informed source as saying.
Allahkaram is the leader and one of the founders of Ansar-e Hezbollah, a paramilitary force that acts as the clerical regimes storm troopers to put down anti-government demonstrations and instil terror in members of the public. Iranian officials have conceded in the past that the group has been organised and led by close confidants of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, such as Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati.
In a revealing account of his years as a member of the leadership council of Ansar-e Hezbollah, defector Amir Farshad Ebrahimi wrote that Allahkaram had been given the go-ahead by the Supreme Leader himself in a meeting in autumn 1992 to form an Iranian version of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
In September 2005, Allahkaram announced his support for suicide operations against the West. At a time when the American government insists on the existence of a military option against Iran, one cannot be opposed to martyrdom-seeking operations, he told Baztab, a Persian-language website run by former top Revolutionary Guards commanders.
