US Declared IRGC as a Terrorist Organization
PCC – IRGC ConnectionIRGC is a Regime within the IRI Regime
IRGC has its own Army, Navy & Air Force
IRGC Qods Force is the Elite Special Forces of IRGC
IRGC Funds & Trains Hezbollah, Hamas & Islamic JihadIRGC has a Connection with Press TV
IRGC Dips in Most Business Entities of Iran
PCC Persian Cultural Center of San Diego runs by its Business Members
PCC Business Members Deal with Business Entities in Iran
Some Business Entities Make Business with IRGC
Some Business Entities in Iran Owned or Run by IRGC
PCC Indirectly Makes Business with IRGCPCC Finances and Money Laundry for NIAC & PAAIA
Common Business Entities Deal with PCC & IRGC
PCC Business Deals with IRGC
NIAC & PAAIA Deal with PCC
It is a Grand Terrorist Network of International Business
It is a Grand Terrorist Network of Money LaundryIRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) are the special force of the IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran) Military. Qods Force is the Special Units force of IRGC. The IRGC is a Regime within the IRI Regime. IRGC controls a great share of Iran’s Oil, Resources and Businesses.
IRGS supports, funds and trains Islamic Terrorism all over the Middle East and the world.
IRGC funds and trains various foreign Islamist Terrorist Organizations such as:
Hezbollah
Hamas
Islamic Jihad
Yemenis Houthis
Al Fatah
Muslim Brotherhood
Al Qaeda
Afghan Shiite Militia
Bosnian Islamic Militia
Bahrainis Shiites
Tajik ShiitesAnd many more
This is the first time in history that US designates a part of a foreign country’s military as a terrorist group. It suits IRGC well.
Trita Parsi Celebrating Obama – Iran Nuclear Deal News
Trita Parsi Iran Lobby Agent in USA – Head of NIAC
Head of IRI Iranian 5th Column in USA
Architect of Iran Lobby in San Diego and USAShahri Estakhry Godmother of Iran Lobby Mafia in San Diego – Ex NIAC Board Member
Shahri Estakhry Iran Lobby Agent in USA – PCC Founder Agent
Persian Cultural Center of San Diego PCC – NIAC and PAAIA AssociateAli Sadr Iran Lobby Agent in USA – PCC Agent
Propagandist and Peyk Magazine Editor
Persian Cultural Center of San Diego – NIAC and PAAIA AssociateSaeed Jalali Iran Lobby Agent in San Diego – PCC Agent
Web Master of Peyk PCC Magazine
Atlas World Fresh Market International Supermarket and Kabob Lounge Restaurants Owner
Front Businesses for IRI Lobby
Some of the famous Persian Supermarkets and Restaurants in SD are IRI Front Businesses
Persian Cultural Center of San Diego PCC – NIAC and PAAIA AssociateIran Lobby Infiltrates San Diego Persian Cultural Center PCC 1http://iranpoliticsclub.net/movement/pcc-sd/index.htmIran Lobby Infiltrates San Diego Persian Cultural Center PCC 2http://iranpoliticsclub.net/movement/pcc-sd2/index.htmVideosSecretary of State Mike Pompeo: "I am announcing our intent to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in accordance with Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act."
Mike Pompeo on IRGC
U.S. Designates Iranian Revolutionary Guard a Terrorist Organization
C-SPAN
https://youtu.be/oVaNjOJLbuMCBS
https://youtu.be/I3HfFED4IKMRevolutionary Guard Responds Strongly to Pompeo
i24
https://youtu.be/U7pVlud4MbU*
U.S. Labels Iran's Revolutionary Guard as A Foreign Terrorist OrganizationBill Chappell
NPR
https://www.npr.org/The U.S. has designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group. Here, members of the force march during a 2007 military parade in Tehran.The Trump administration is designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, taking an unprecedented step as it seems to increase pressure on Iran's regime. The move seems certain to bring a new level of tension between the two countries, as Iran's leaders have said they will retaliate in kind.
Iranian lawmakers have prepared legislation that would label part of the U.S. military as a terrorist group, according to Iran's state-run IRNA news agency.
President Trump announced the designation Monday morning, in a shift from the decades in which the U.S. has viewed Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.
"This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft," Trump said in a White House statement. "The IRGC is the Iranian government's primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign."
In response, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged his government to add the Pentagon's U.S. Central Command to its own list of terrorist organizations, IRNA reports.
With the U.S. designation, anyone who deals with the Revolutionary Guard could run the risk of facing criminal charges, such as aiding or supporting a terrorist group.
"If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism," Trump said.
It's the first time the U.S. has declared an element of a foreign government to be a terrorist organization, the Trump administration says. The Revolutionary Guard now joins ISIS, Boko Haram and other groups on the U.S. list of terrorist groups.
Laying out the administration's reasoning for the designation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listed a string of attacks and violent plots, which he said gave "ample justification for today's decision."
Among the cases cited by Pompeo were two that directly involved the U.S.: the 1996 Khobar Towers apartment complex bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American service members and wounded dozens more; and a 2011 case in which the Obama administration said it had foiled a Quds Force plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. in a bombing in Washington, D.C.
Today, the White House sees the IRGC as an "active and enthusiastic participant in acts of terror," a senior administration official said in a background briefing held shortly before Pompeo discussed the announcement Monday morning.
Accusing Iran of using the Revolutionary Guard to try to reshape the Middle East in its favor, another official said the group has amassed too much power and money, which he said it then uses to support attacks on Americans and U.S. assets.
"The Middle East cannot be more stable and peaceful without a weakened IRGC," the official said.
In recent months, the Trump administration has sought to impose "maximum pressure" on Iran's regime, after abandoning the nuclear deal brokered during the Obama administration. Even before news emerged of a possible terrorism designation for the Revolutionary Guard, more than 970 Iranian entities and individuals were already under U.S. sanctions.
But the administration is now taking the rare step of designating another country's military force as a terrorist group.
"In the past, part of the Guard Corps, known as the Quds Force, has been targeted by Washington," NPR's Peter Kenyon reports. "Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that President Trump 'should know better than to be conned into another U.S. disaster.' "
Zarif and other Iranian officials sharply criticized the U.S. plan over the weekend, after news emerged that an official U.S. announcement against the Revolutionary Guard was imminent.
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, warned that if the U.S. labels his force as a terrorist group, the result would mean the Revolutionary Guard could target the U.S. military the same way it currently targets ISIS.
"If (the Americans) make such a stupid move, the U.S. Army and American security forces stationed in West Asia [Middle East] will lose their current status of ease and serenity," Jafari said, according to the semi-official FARS News Agency.
"I do not think that the Americans will be that much out of their mind to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization," Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said, according to FARS.
The U.S. designation of the Revolutionary Guard comes one day before Israel holds a national vote on the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Responding to news of the pending announcement, Zarif said Trump is granting a long-held request from Netanyahu.
Netanyahu welcomed the move once it became official Monday, calling Trump a "dear friend" and thanking the president for his decision.
"Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism," Netanyahu said via Twitter.
When asked about the timing of the designation on Monday, senior Trump administration officials said it had been in the works for months. They also said that in the past, there has been bipartisan U.S. support for declaring the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group.
As Pompeo described the Trump administration's rationale for making the terrorist designation, he said the Revolutionary Guard now plays a large role in Iran's economy, "through pure kleptocracy."
The U.S. has previously targeted the Revolutionary Guard's investment arm — the IRGC Cooperative Foundation, or Bonyad Taavon Sepah — with the Treasury Department saying in 2010 that military leaders were using the organization to exert control over Iran's defense production, construction, and oil and gas sectors.
On Monday, Pompeo noted that last July, officials in Tehran said the Revolutionary Guard's foundation had "embezzled more than $1 billion from the city" and that Tehran's mayor, a former guard commander, has been accused of "steering contracts to the IRGC."
"The leaders of Iran are racketeers, not revolutionaries," Pompeo said.
Administration officials also reiterated allegations against Iran that were made last week, when the State Department's Brian Hook, U.S. special representative for Iran, blamed Iran for the deaths of hundreds of American service personnel in Iraq.
"Iran is responsible for the deaths of at least 608 American service members" in Iraq, Hook said, citing U.S. military reports.
When he announced that figure, Hook did not give many details about those deaths; on Monday, he said the U.S. personnel had been killed by improvised explosive devices that Iran supplied to militias in Iraq.
"This accounts for 17 percent of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011," Hook said last week. "This death toll is in addition to the many thousands of Iraqis killed by the IRGC's proxies."
Hook also accused Iran of causing widespread problems, saying it supports the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian groups such as Hamas, and backs the Houthi military insurgency in Yemen, where Iran has been engaged in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia.
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U.S. Designates Iran's Revolutionary Guards As 'Terrorist Organization'RFE
https://www.rferl.org/Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards march during an annual military parade in Tehran in September 2018.U.S. President Donald Trump has designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), the first time the United States has labelled another nation's military as a terrorist group.
Washington will continue to increase financial pressure and raise the costs on Iran "for its support of terrorist activity," Trump said in a statement.
Tehran responded in kind, announcing a couple of hours later that its top security council has designated the United States a "state sponsor of terrorism" and U.S. forces in the region "terrorist groups."
The United States has already blacklisted tens of entities and people for affiliations with the IRGC, but not the organization as a whole.
"This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as an FTO [foreign terrorist organization]," Trump said.
"It underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments."
"It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC," Trump said. "If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism."
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the designation will take effect in one week. Pompeo, speaking to the media in Washington, warned all banks and businesses to end dealings with the IRGC.
The move blocks any assets that IRGC entities may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from any transactions with it.
When it takes effect, it will allow Washington to deny entry to people found to have provided the IRGC with "material support" or prosecute them for sanctions violations.
State news agency IRNA reported shortly afterwards that Iran's Supreme National Security Council has labelled the United States a "state sponsor of terrorism."
The council blasted Washington's move as an "illegal and foolish act," and said that in response, it "declares that it considers the regime of the U.S. a state sponsor of terrorism and the Central Command of America, known as CENTCOM, and all forces related to it terrorist groups," the statement posted by IRNA said.
CENTCOM's area of command covers multiple war zones and hot spots including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and the Persian Gulf.
The decision came after Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged President Hassan Rohani to place CENTCOM on Tehran's list of "terrorist" groups.
Strong Political, Economic Influence
Zarif also sent a protest letter over the U.S. designation to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which looks after the U.S. interests in Iran.
Critics had warned that such a step could open U.S. military and intelligence officials to similar actions by unfriendly countries.
But U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said the move proves America's determination to step up the pressure on Tehran to make it stop using terrorism as a "tool of statecraft."
The Guards were formed after the 1979 Islamic revolution with a mission to protect the regime, as opposed to more traditional military units that defend borders.
Over the decades, the IRGC has amassed strong political and economic influence inside Iran, while its elite Quds Force, named for the Arabic word for Jerusalem, supports Iranian allies, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanon's Hizballah movement.
The U.S. move was welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who thanked Trump, saying the designation "serves the interests of our countries and of countries in the region."
Netanyahu wrote on Twitter following the announcement, "Thank you, President @realDonaldTrump for your decision to designate the Islamic revolutionary guards as a terrorist organization. Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism."
Israel has long seen Iran as its greatest foe, citing its leaders' hostile rhetoric, suspect nuclear program, development of long-range missiles, and support for anti-Israeli militant groups such as Hizballah.
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Revolutionary Guard Corps: US labels Iran force as terroristsBBC
https://www.bbc.com/US President Donald Trump has designated Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organisation.
It is the first time the US has labelled another nation's military as a terrorist organisation.
Iran retaliated by declaring US forces in the Middle East as a terrorist organisation, Iran state news reported.
Washington-Tehran tensions have risen since Mr Trump withdrew the US from the international Iran nuclear pact.
Labelling the Guards as a terrorist organisation will allow the US to impose further sanctions - particularly affecting the business sector, given the IRGC's involvement in Iran's economy.
A number of IRGC and affiliated entities have already been targeted by US sanctions for alleged proliferation activities, support for terrorism and human rights abuses.
What did President Trump say?
Mr Trump's statement on Monday said: "This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognises the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft."
The president added that the move was meant to "significantly expand the scope and scale" of pressure on Iran.
"If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism," Mr Trump said.
The measure will take effect in one week's time, according to the State Department.
Was there any dissent in the Trump administration?
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, both Iran hawks, championed the decision, but not all US officials were so supportive.
Mr Pompeo told reporters on Monday the US will continue to sanction and pressure Iran to "behave like a normal nation" and urged America's allies to take similar action.
"The leaders of Iran are not revolutionaries and people deserve better," Mr Pompeo said. "They are opportunists."
In a later tweet, he added: "We must help the people of Iran get back their freedom."
Mr Bolton said labelling the IRGC as terrorists was "the rightful designation".
But some Pentagon officials, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen Joe Dunford, had expressed concerns about troop safety, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Military officials cautioned the designation could incite violence against US forces in the Middle East without severely impacting Iran's economy.
The Central Intelligence Agency had also reportedly opposed the move.
What was the response?
Iran's national security council declared US Central Command (Centcom) a terrorist organisation after Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote to President Hassan Rouhani urging such a response, state news channel IRINN said.
Centcom is the Pentagon wing that oversees Washington's security interests across the central area of the world map, most notably Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Syria.
The Islamic Republic had warned it would retaliate in kind last week, after reports of the Trump administration plan first surfaced.
"We will answer any action taken against this force with a reciprocal action," a statement issued by 255 out of the 290 Iranian MPs said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is battling for political survival in Tuesday's elections, cheered the US move.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani (left) seen at the 21st Nationwide Assembly of the IRGC in 2015What is the IRGC?
Iran's most elite military unit, the IRGC was set up shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution to defend the country's Islamic system, and to provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces.
It has since become a major military, political and economic force in Iran, with close ties to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many other senior figures hailing from its ranks.
The IRGC is estimated to have more than 150,000 active personnel, boasts its own ground forces, navy and air force, and oversees Iran's strategic weapons, including its ballistic missiles.
The IRGC exerts influence elsewhere in the Middle East by providing money, weapons, technology, training and advice to allied governments and armed groups through its shadowy overseas operations arm, the Quds (Jerusalem) Force.
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