{"id":8773,"date":"2017-11-08T21:52:01","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T02:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=8773"},"modified":"2017-11-08T21:52:01","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T02:52:01","slug":"terror-airlines-irans-revolutionary-guard-corps-runs-countrys-largest-airline-report-says-irgc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/8773\/","title":{"rendered":"Terror Airlines? #Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps runs country’s largest airline, report says – #IRGC"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report released by an Iranian opposition group claims that Iran\u2019s biggest airline \u2014\u00a0Mahan Air<\/strong> \u2014\u00a0is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Qods Force. This force is commanded by notorious Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new report published by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) states that the so-called private airline, Iran\u2019s largest commercial airliner, is anything but commercial, and in fact works as a tool\u00a0for Iran\u2019s expansionist policies. President Donald Trump sanctioned the IRGC last month for supporting terrorism.<\/p>\n

The report titled, \u201cAn IRGC Qods Force entity operating under the guise of a private company,\u201d\u00a0stated that\u00a0one of the most significant findings \u201cwas that Mahan Air Corporation does not merely cooperate with the IRGC and the Qods Force, but is wholly owned and controlled by them.\u201d This is the same\u00a0Qods Force which was sanctioned by the U.S. for providing material support to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations in 2007.<\/p>\n

The report describes the critical role that Mahan Air plays, along with other Iranian carriers, in \u201cIran\u2019s interference in the countries of the region, including the transfer of personnel and logistics for the IRGC and proxy militias.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the report, as of 2017,\u00a0Mahan Air\u00a0includes\u00a062 airliners and flies commercially to 41 destinations in 24 countries on three continents. Major destinations\u00a0include Paris, Milan and Munich in Europe, and others in Asia and Africa, where front companies have been created to bypass sanctions.<\/p>\n

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The report also\u00a0describes the complex relationship between Soleimani, the Qods Force commander, and some senior commanders of IRGC who\u00a0fought under him during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. These parties operated\u00a0in the same region in Iran \u2014\u00a0Kerman, the place where Mahan Air was first registered. Curiously,\u00a0all those mentioned in the report now hold senior positions at Mahan Air while still being members of the IRGC.<\/p>\n

Soona Samsami, the NCRI representative in Washington D.C., told Fox News that Mahan has transported forces, logistics and weaponry for the IRGC and Hezbollah between Iran, Syria and Lebanon. She said, \u201cIt is primarily used by the IRGC in general and the Qods Force in specific in transferring forces and equipment and regional mercenaries such as Hezbollah to Syria and Lebanon. This airline has played the most active role in the past six years during the war in Syria for such transportations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emanuele Ottolenghi, who does not have anything to do with the publication of the NCRI report, is an expert on Iran sanctions and its aviation sector. He told Fox News, \u201cMahan CEO Hamid Arabnejad Khanooki and QF (Qods Force) Commander Qassem Soleimani are both Kermanis. And Arabnejad is a former IRGC commander. It is not a formal relationship, but is based on informal bonds or origin, militancy and ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ottolenghi is senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington D.C.\u00a0He has written widely on nonnuclear sanctions against Iran and has testified to Congress on the subject. He pointed to Executive Order 13224 signed by President George W. Bush shortly after the 9\/11 terrorist attacks that gives the administration powerful tools to confront terrorist funding.<\/p>\n

(It) \u201callows them to target enablers and providers of material support to Mahan. Any company selling parts, offering maintenance services, can be hit by fines or sanctions. Same for those operating as cargo sales, general sales and ticket sales agents. Ditto for ground services suppliers at airports. These include fueling, baggage handling, crew services, catering, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ottolenghi continued, \u201cSimilarly the administration can sanction the Iranian airports whence Mahan troop flights to Syria leave. It can sanction the company that provides fuel to Mahan in Iran. If it knows banks involved in managing payments in Europe for Mahan Air\u2019s transactions on these services, it can similarly sanction them or at least impose fines,\u201d he said. \u201cIn short a lot more can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahan Air was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2011 for providing material support to the IRGC\u2019s Qods Force in 2011, and again in 2016 to four entities that had helped Mahan skirt the sanctions regime placed against it. Several airlines that had been on the list were removed following the 2015 Iran nuclear deal \u2014\u00a0Mahan Air remained on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn short, Mahan Air is the pseudo name for \u2018IRGC Air.\u2019 This front carrier is a primary asset in the IRGC\u2019s fueling of Iran\u2019s belligerence across the region,\u201d Heshmat Alavi, an Iranian political analyst and activist, said.<\/p>\n

Alavi told Fox News about the airlines goals: “This\u00a0includes transferring recruited Afghans and Pakistanis to provide foot-soldiers and cannon fodders in Iran\u2019s campaign of propping the Assad regime in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u00a0added that following President Trump\u2019s sanctioning of the IRGC for its support of terrorism the administration needs to hit back at Iranian intransigence. \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s IRGC blacklisting needs full-throttle implementation and patching all loopholes left behind from the Obama-era. One major step is to clip the IRGC\u2019s wings and bring an urgent end to Iran\u2019s footprints throughout the Middle East and beyond,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n

Ben Evansky reports for Fox News\u00a0on the United Nations and international affairs.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report released by an Iranian opposition group claims that Iran\u2019s biggest airline \u2014\u00a0Mahan Air \u2014\u00a0is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,37],"tags":[273,272,82,271,150,270],"class_list":["post-8773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-terrorism-fundamentalism","tag-fox-news","tag-iranian-opposition","tag-irgc","tag-mahan-air","tag-ncri","tag-qasem-soleimani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8775,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773\/revisions\/8775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}