One of the main tasks of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), in order to issue a policy of killing, assassination, and extortion, is the subject of hostage-taking. The hostage-taking in this regime from the first days has been used for various purposes.
In a book called ‘For History, I say,’ which contains the memoirs of Mohsen Rafighdoost from 1979 to 1989, points to one example of the ransom by the IRGC by hostage-taking. The interviewee (a person named Saeed Alamian) introduced Rafighdoost: Moshen Rafighdoost while he is the founder of the IRGC … is one of the important persons in these days. The book continued:
A person named Mehdi Nejad Tabrizi comes to Mohsen Rafighdoost and announces that he is ready to kill Bakhtiar. Mohsen Rafighdoost also took without losing time Bakhtiar’s revolutionary death warrant: “I went to Ayatollah Mohammadi Gilani and told him we had a group that we wanted to send to execute Bakhtiar. Do you allow? He said yes! I give his sentence; and he wrote: Bakhtiar is Mahdur al-Dam (a person whose blood can be spilled). (Book, for History I say, p. 129)
Then, the interviewer writes: “After the verdict was issued, a group of four people, including a person named Anis al-Naqqash (known as Abu Mazen, who now resides in Iran) … overall three Iranians and two Lebanese went to France to execute the verdict. But since at the same time Abu Sharif [one of the co-founders of the Revolutionary Guards] had commissioned another group, there was an interference in the operation and the operation failed:
“We and Abu Sharif were not aware of each other (that they worked on the same plan). The execution was under the cover of a journalist of a famous Arab magazine… When Abu Mazen and Naejad Tabrizi (the executor) go on with a rifle, the police get involved … Our plan failed, too.” (p.130 same source)
A noisy trial took place for the five-man team, and they confessed in court that they had been commissioned by Rafighdoost to execute this operation… 1990 Lebanese guerrillas who were friends of Abu Mazen attacked the French embassy in a string of operations and also hijacked a French aircraft. After that, a representative from the French president met with Rafighdoost… Rafighdoost declared the only solution is the release of Abu Mazen’s group from prison and insisted that their friends would take further action if they were not released. (p. 130 same sources)
Comrade… goes to France and… within two weeks Abu Mazen and his team were released (p. 130 same sources)
Thus, the story of the assassination, hostage-taking, and hijacking by the Revolutionary Guards, which left several dead and injured, ended after ten years with a deal behind the curtains with the Iranian regime, and the Iranian terrorists were released under the appeasement policy.
In another example, the mullahs’ dictatorship on 13 July 1989, killed Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the first secretary of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Vienna, at the negotiating table with the regime. Mohammad Jafari Sahraroudi, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards, commanded the assassination squad. With the arrests of the Iranians at the scene and despite their clear involvement in the assassination, the terrorists were able to return to Iran without hindrance under pressure from the mullahs’ government on the Austrian government.
Despite conspicuous and undisputed evidence from the Austrian police and judiciary, a warrant was not issued for Sahraroudi and his accomplices.
Threats of hostage-taking and acts of sabotage and explosions in Austria on one hand and the lucrative relations between the mullahs and the Austrian regime, on the other hand, prevented the extradition of terrorists to Austria and the case was suspended.
Regarding the assassination of Dr. Kazem Rajavi, the investigating judge reiterated that 13 persons were involved in the preparation of the terror. Two of the killers were identified as Mohsen Sharif Isfahani, 37, and Ahmed Taheri, 32, who was later identified in France and arrested by police.
Despite their arrest warrants by the Swiss authorities, in December 1991, French Prime Minister Edward Balador sent the two as a gift directly to Tehran instead of delivering them to Switzerland for trial.
Confession of Mohammad Ali Jafari commander of the IRGC’s Baghiatollah base:
About the hostage-taking of the US embassy in 1980 and its effectiveness for the Iranian regime he said:
“If it had not been the hostage-taking our revolution would not have survived for forty years, and in the first decade of the revolution, the revolution would have been ended … Only a few and a limited number of our revolutionary officials, including Khamenei (Iran’s supreme leader) on the top of them, strongly agreed with this revolutionary movement.” (Jafari, IRIB news, 4 November 2018)
These statements clearly acknowledge the fact that the mullahs’ regime has always found its way out of a crisis by hostage-taking and terrorism which are planned at the highest levels of government.
