Foreign backed terrorism in Iran: Part one -US/Israeli backed Salafists in Iran

By Aram Mirzaei for the Saker blog

While terrorism is a phenomenon most of us have come in touch with during our lifetime, much of the coverage is shadowed by terrorism in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq, where US backed terrorist groups have wreaked havoc in devastating the wars that have plagued these countries.

Nonetheless, terrorism is widespread across the region, even in Iran. Due to Iran’s relatively strong internal stability, terrorist groups have been unable to catch major headlines in the Islamic Republic as terrorist groups often conduct hit and run attacks or the occasional kidnappings of young drafted border guards and soldiers near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border areas as well as across Iran’s western borders towards Iraq. Some groups are motivated by separatist goals, while others are driven by religious extremism. In this first part I will cover terrorism across Iran’s eastern borders, one that is driven by the Salafist ideology.

Iran has been familiar with terrorism for many decades through the Saddam Hussein-backed “People’s Mujahideen”, a strange group of “Marxist-Islamists” who waged war on their own country in an attempt to grab power, shortly after the Islamic Revolution. During Saddam’s 8 year war on Iran they were backed and armed by Iraqi security forces, often resorting to terrorist attacks, killing many innocent people in the process. While this group was effectively defeated, it has nonetheless survived as it was sheltered by the Saddam regime and recently have found refuge in Albania. I will come back to this group later.

Since the 9/11 attacks when Al-Qaeda became a household name, Takfiri groups have become increasingly widespread in the Middle East and central Asia. Many Takfiri groups have found their haven in neighbouring Pakistan which they use as a home base to launch cross border attacks on Afghanistan and Iran. Pakistan’s government and security apparatus are known to support Takfiri groups across the region, at the behest of Washington, a fact that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf admitted to.

Pakistan is home to multiple Saudi funded so called Madrasas, terrorist recruitment centres focused on brainwashing young men into joining militant groups with similar ideologies such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. For decades, since the days of the Soviet-Afghan war, Islamabad has used terrorism as a tool for its foreign policy towards its neighbours. But it is important to understand that Islamabad and Pakistan’s security services are working for Washington’s interests, because had they had their own interests at heart, they wouldn’t allow the Waziristan province to turn into a terrorist controlled region in the country, endangering the lives of Pakistanis across the country. These Takfiri groups have committed heinous crimes against Pakistanis as well, such as the notorious Peshawar school shootings of 2014 where 132 schoolchildren were murdered.

Since 2003, Iran has been plagued by Takfiri terrorism that has penetrated through Iran’s south-eastern borders into the Sistan and Baluchistan province. One of the more active groups in the region was the Jundallah terrorist group, made up of the predominantly Sunni Muslim Baluchis (a people living in southeastern Iran and southwestern Pakistan). Jundallah claimed to be fighting for Baluchi rights in Iran while also espousing the formation of a Sunni Baluchi state. From their bases in Pakistan, over the course of 8 years, Jundallah conducted multiple terrorist attacks in Iran, such as the 2007 Zahedan bombings where 18 members of the IRGC were killed.

The following investigation pointed towards external backing by the U.S and Israel, as Mossad agents posing as CIA officers met with and recruited members of Jundallah in cities such as London to carry out attacks against Iran. In late 2008, in an interview with the Saudi Al-Arabiyah TV, Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi said that his group had been “given 2000 men as well as military and ideological training”, indicating that external support to his group was indeed an ongoing process. In the following two years more attacks were carried out in the Sistan and Baluchistan province as Jundallah stepped up their operations. Despite Pakistan’s official policy of cooperating with Iran on the matter of cross border terrorism in this region, some Iranian officials have directly accused Pakistan of playing a double game. It has been claimed that Jundallah can not operate with at least some degree of support from within Pakistan and that elements from within Pakistani security establishment, particularly ISI with financial support of Saudi Arabia and its supplementation through the largest opium black market in the world have created a network of drug smugglers and terrorists in the region.

In 2007, ABC News cited US. and Pakistani intelligence sources as saying American officials had been secretly advising and encouraging Jundullah militants to carry out attacks against targets inside Iran. The following year, in 2008, Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker investigation revealed that the Bush administration had been funding covert operations inside Iran designed to destabilize the country’s leadership since 2005. According to Hersh, these covert activities included support for Baluchi groups such as Jundullah. That same year, Pakistan’s former army chief, General Mirza Aslam Baig, claimed to have first-hand knowledge that the US was providing training facilities to Jundallah militants in Pakistan and southeastern Iran, specifically to sow unrest between the two neighbouring countries.

The final piece of evidence was uncovered when Abdolmalek Rigi was captured in 2010. In a televised interview with Iranian officials before his execution, Rigi confessed that the Americans “promised to help us and they said that they would co-operate with us, free our prisoners, and would give us military equipment, bombs, machine guns, and they would give us a base.” Rigi added that “The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran… not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran. We don’t have a military plan against Iran. Attacking Iran is very difficult for us (the US).”

Rigi’s arrest and subsequent execution weakened and ultimately dissolved Jundallah as members broke off to form new terrorist groups such as Harakat Ansar Iran and the more notorious Jaish ul Adl. Like Jundallah, Jaish ul-Adl is operating in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, as well as Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. The group has carried out numerous attacks against Iranian government institutions, including one infamous incident in March 2014 in which five Iranian border guards were kidnapped, with one being executed later. The latest attack was carried out just two months ago, when a suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying IRGC personnel in the city of Zahedan (Sistan and Baluchistan).

Aside from carrying on Jundallah’s previous goals of creating a jihadist Baluchi state in southeastern Iran, Jaish ul-Adl is also opposed to the government’s active support of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which they regard as an attack on Sunni Muslims. This is where the Syrian war again is connected to the rise of salafist groups across the region, and shows us how these groups are indeed the same as the US backed terrorist groups in Syria. Takfiri extremist organizations such as Jaish al-Adl see their war against Iran as an extension of the war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, itself part of the broader jihad against Shia Islam.

In the next part of this series, I will cover the much broader and frequent support for Kurdish nationalist and separatist groups in Western Iran, as well as the recent rise of Arab separatism in southwestern Iran.

Mass psychosis & the church of humanitarian interventionism (1)

Like the proverbial general always fighting the last war, the US liberals remain trapped in the past, unable to adapt to rapidly unfolding kinetic developments. The problem is that not only is this general fighting the last war, but the general can no longer distinguish between right and left and has lost any semblance of a moral compass.

These were the remarks of David Penner who writes for CounterPunch, in his article for the Saker siter, titled: “Mass Psychosis & the Church of Humanitarian Interventionism”.

Ask any American liberal aged sixty-five and older what they think about Spain’s Francisco Franco, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, or Germany’s Adolf Hitler and they will vehemently denounce these men as tyrants, murderers, and despots. Ask them what they think about the Vietnam War and they will say it was a tragedy, not only for the Vietnamese, but for the poor American soldiers who were drafted and used as cannon fodder. Liberals also once defended the civil rights movement and the New Deal while vigorously opposing McCarthyism. That these same people would go on to support deunionization, resegregation, and Russophobia while enthusiastically backing barbarous wars and interventions in Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine constitutes not only a betrayal of leftist principles, but is indicative of a rejection of reason and the reality-based world.

Like the proverbial general always fighting the last war, liberals remain trapped in the past, unable to adapt to rapidly unfolding kinetic developments. The problem is that not only is this general fighting the last war, this is a general that can no longer distinguish between right and left and has lost any semblance of a moral compass.

One could argue that the new Cold War began with Bill Clinton bringing Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO. For Russians that were not yet alarmed by this perfidy, their red lines were irrefutably crossed with the NATO destruction of Yugoslavia and the bombing of Serbia, regarded by Russians as a brotherly nation. This constituted an illegal war of aggression, and was carried out without a mandate from the United Nations Security Council. Indeed, the NATO destruction of Yugoslavia initiated an unraveling of international law and marked an erosion in the equilibrium between the great powers.

As Noam Chomsky has noted, Yugoslavia was marked for destruction, because unlike the other formerly communist European countries they did not embrace privatization. The destruction of Yugoslavia was not only a violation of the UN Charter, but was also the first “humanitarian intervention” following the collapse of the USSR that liberals were duped into embracing. In an article on the RT website titled “15 years on: Looking back at NATO’s ‘humanitarian’ bombing of Yugoslavia,” the author writes, “NATO demonstrated in 1999 that it can do whatever it wants under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention,’ ‘war on terror,’ or ‘preventive war’ – something that everyone has witnessed in subsequent years in different parts of the globe.”

Brigadier-General Pierre Marie Gallois of the French Army has condemned the NATO destruction of Yugoslavia. Gallois also argues that the German elite sought revenge for the fierce Serb resistance during the two world wars, especially with regard to the Serb partisans that held up German divisions that were headed towards Leningrad and Moscow during Operation Barbarossa. While hundreds of thousands of Serbs were expelled from both Croatia and Kosovo, Serbia was turned into a free-fire zone by NATO for over seventy days. The US took advantage of the conflict to solidify control over its European vassals.

During the aerial campaign, between ten and fifteen tons of depleted uranium were dropped on Serbia resulting in extremely high rates of cancer. The Independent coyly informed its readers that the expulsion of Serbs from Croatia, which they refer to as an “exodus” – is a great mystery – a “riddle.” The only “riddle” is how liberals can denounce genocide and speak ad nauseam about human rights while supporting neo-Nazi regimes, such as the Poroshenko government in Kiev and the Tudjman government in Croatia, which have perpetrated genocidal war crimes in broad daylight. Liberal-backed militants in Libya and Syria have likewise carried out one ethnic cleansing after another.

Endless calls by the mainstream press to stop the evil Serbs from establishing a “greater Serbia” were blatant propaganda, as there was no way that the hundreds of thousands of Serbs in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo could have “invaded” these territories, as they had already been living there for centuries. Moreover, as the mass media was busy vilifying the Serbs, behind the scenes American diplomats had no illusions about who they were dealing with, referring to the Croatian nationalists as “our junkyard dogs.”

In an article titled “The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia,” Michael Parenti writes: Tudjman presided over the forced evacuation of over half a million Serbs from Croatia between 1991 and 1995. Needless to say, US leaders did nothing to stop and much to assist these atrocities, while the US media looked the other way.

Kosovo was also prized by the Western elites because of its rich deposits of coal, lead, zinc, cadmium, gold and silver valued in the billions of dollars. The tragic balkanization of Yugoslavia, where brother was pitted against brother, brought about the destruction of a non-aligned country with a nationalized economy thereby bolstering the power of Western finance capital.  Of the NATO bombings, Parenti posits that, “To destroy publicly-run Yugoslav factories that produced auto parts, appliances, or fertilizer…is to enhance the investment value of western producers. And every television or radio station closed down by NATO troops or blown up by NATO bombs extends the monopolizing dominance of the western media cartels. The aerial destruction of Yugoslavia’s social capital served that purpose.”

Lamentably, all of this was Western liberals were duped into embracing a war which was waged for no other reason than to fortify the power of US and NATO hegemony. This propaganda is particularly galling in light of the fact that women’s rights have been thrown back into the Stone Age precisely in the very countries which have come under attack by Washington and her proxies, such as Libya, rebel-occupied parts of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Repeated calls by the presstitutes to “save Benghazi” sufficed to obtain liberal support for a war of aggression that has left Libya in such a state of anarchy and chaos, that Libyans who have been unable to flee the country are now trapped in a failed state where warring militias vie for power. In an article in Foreign Affairs titled “Obama’s Libya Debacle,” Alan J. Kuperman writes, “With Moscow’s acquiescence, the United Nations Security Council had approved the establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya and other measures to protect civilians. But NATO exceeded that mandate to pursue regime change.”

Under Qadhafi Libyans enjoyed a high standard of living, and health care and education were free. Qadhafi’s desire to set up a gold-backed dinar put him in the crosshairs of the Western elites, as this would have liberated Africans from domination by the World Bank and the IMF through establishing a common gold-backed currency. Alas, this was lost on the human rights crusaders of the holier-than-thou faux left.

Libya, which formerly had the highest standard of living in Africa, has been annihilated as a nation state. Slave markets are a legacy of this great “humanitarian intervention,” as are pogroms carried out against black Africans, formerly given refuge by the Qadhafi regime. An article in The Telegraph, which appeared in March of 2011, titled “Libya crisis: Benghazi fights for its life as Qadhafi attacks,” was one of countless articles in the mainstream press that incited messianic liberals into supporting a war of aggression against a people that had become too independent. Once a country is marked for destruction by the Western elites no story is too outrageous, as evidenced by Susan Rice’s claim that Qadhafi supplied his troops with Viagra so that they could more effectively carry out mass rapes. This barbaric destruction of a sovereign state was summed up by liberal icon Hillary Clinton, who when asked about the brutal murder of Qadhafi, happily blurted out “We came! We saw! He died!”

In what constituted the most genocidal invasion of a country following the end of the Vietnam War, Iraq was marked for annihilation after Saddam made the decision to sell oil in euros. In a rare moment of candor from a high priest of liberalism, Madeleine Albright, when asked about the half a million children that died due to the Clinton-backed sanctions, replied “We think the price is worth it.” This chilling remark underscores the fact that, contrary to liberal theology, the destruction of Iraq was perpetrated with equal fervor by both parties. Incredibly, even after spending trillions of dollars systematically destroying Iraqi social and political institutions, Washington failed to install a puppet government in Baghdad which has forged alliances with Tehran, Damascus, and Moscow.

Liberal saint Obama, in comparing the reunification of Crimea and Russia with the Iraq War, informs us that the “annexation of Crimea” – which was enthusiastically backed by the overwhelming majority of Crimeans – was worse than the invasion of Iraq, which resulted in a million deaths, destroyed a civilization and fueled the rise of Daesh.

As if her abysmal record makes her a Marxist scholar, Albright now warns Americans of the dangers of fascism, her implication of course being that the rise of Trump represents a threat to our democracy. Perhaps the Donald’s desire to pursue detente with Russia, and the fact that he has yet to start any new wars are what liberals are really upset about.

The Obama administration’s support for the Saudi war on Yemen is yet another impressive achievement for the liberal class, and has yielded such an earthly paradise that Yemenis have resorted to eating leaves to survive. For this extravaganza of mass murder the presstitutes didn’t even bother coming up with a fictitious narrative, allowing the salt of the earth to set aside their pom-poms for a while and take a nap.

Syria: Mass Murder in Paradise. Unsurprisingly, the mass media had no trouble duping imaginary leftists into believing that Syrians were being indiscriminately slaughtered by the Syrian Arab Army and the Russians. Unbeknownst to The Guardian and The New York Times, the US military presence in Syria is illegal, while Russian and Iranian military personnel are there at the invitation of the Syrian government. The Obama administration and its vassals are clearly responsible for the carnage in Syria, as they poured billions of dollars into backing the many militant groups. The mass media also hoodwinked liberals into thinking that the US military has been fighting Daesh, when they have used Daesh along with an-Nusra Front and other illegal armed formations, as proxies with which to wage war on Syrian society. If Washington were battling the terrorists in Syria, why would they simultaneously be antagonists with the Syrian government and the Russians, who together saved Syria from being overrun by these very barbarians? Indeed, such questions have become a form of unmitigated heresy.

Tiger’s claws in terrorists’ nest; the battle of north Syria is coming soon

By Farzad Farhadi 

TEHRAN - The Syrian army succeeded in striking a blow at the Takfiri group in their occupied territories and did away with the ISIS. Now, it is time to get rid of other terrorists, including Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra in the province of Idlib in northern Syria as the Syrian Armed Forces are seeking to wrap up the terrorist's chapter in Syria.

Recently, terrorist groups have violated the agreement on a weapon-free zone in Idlib and its surroundings and have taken provocative action against the Syrian Army who supports civilians in villages and settlements. 

It seems that northern Syria, Idlib and its suburb, is about to witness new developments as the Syrian Army is through with terrorists in other fronts. 

Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group, headed by Al-Nusra Front, some takfiri terrorist groups, and foreign mercenaries are in Idlib and northern suburb of Hama while they receive their training abroad.

When Tahrir al-Sham won a battle against a group called Nooruddin Zangi, they imagined they could take over Idlib region. The Nour al-Din al-Zenki group was defeated in five days and escape to Afrin in the north leaving all their arms and ammunition depots behind. 

The terrorists that Turkey couldn’t tame

The weapon-free zone promised by Turkey seems to have had little success as Al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani greatly disappointed Turkey and violated the area. The Turks did not succeed in pushing the Takfiris back from borders. As Tahrir al-Sham group and its ally did not bow down to Ankara’s demand, they brought their own downfall. 

Some analysts believe it would be unlikely for Ankara to bring Turkish-backed arm groups against 30,000 Tahrir al-Sham terrorists whose half of them is from the Al-Nusra Front. 

Other experts believe Turkey’s agreement and perhaps its collaboration with Russia is to carry out direct attacks on the Tahrir al-Sham especially that the action is in line with the international community law to combat terrorism.

However, the most likely option is that the Syrian army, with the support of the Russians to determine Idlib's fate, particularly the Turks has failed to be committed to the deal. Damascus has decided to add more Syrian forces to the frontline. This is also in line with the Astana agreement because the terrorists of Al-Nusra Front are not subject to the armed groups listed in the ceasefire agreement.

An invincible general to rout the terrorists

According to a Syrian military source, Brigadier General Suheil Salman al-Hassan, known as The Tiger, has visited the battlefields in the western suburbs of Hamah province. 

In the past days, the Syrian Army is on standby on the fronts of the Hama and Idlib suburbs, as more forces and equipment are being dispatched on the northern front of Hama. In addition, General al-Hassan has summoned the Syrian Special Mission Forces.

The secret of the commander’s presence in difficult missions on the front of Idlib and Hama suburbs

General al-Hassan is one of the most popular Syrian commanders who won’t be defeated in any war. He was honored by the Russian commanders at al-Hamim Russian military air base in Syria. He is the one who broke the siege of the Aleppo and other sensitive sites around the city.

The influence of this general, his sense of patriotism, and loyalty to the Syrian army and Bashar al-Assad is exemplary. Since he is the closest commander to Bashar al-Assad, the most important and sensitive missions are assigned to him.

Known as a military commander who loves the battlefield, General al-Hassan has sworn not to see his only son, age 5, until he reaches the ultimate victory. That shows the degree of his sincerity to his cause. General Al-Hassan is among the first to graduate from the Air Force College in 1991 and has some of the outstanding attributes of Syrian Former President Hafiz al-Assad.

He always appears in the photos and videos of the media on the battlefield supporting the wounded soldiers, lifting their spirit, and encouraging them to fight for Syria.

The Syrian general is a decisive and steadfast general committed to his military approach, and fights corruption and disorder, especially among forces under his command. He executes militants, who are accused of looting and plundering civilian homes during raids in the conflict zones. 

Commander Tiger's popularity is to an extent that Syrian troops wish to fight under his command. His military unit is composed of 80,000 soldiers who, according to experts, all have gone through necessary trainings.

What do the Zionists say about General al-Hassan?

On General al-Hassan, the Israeli News Agency Walla admits that he has very tough tactics. He liberated a military airport in northern Syria and has achieved significant success in the battlefield with the Syrian Armed Forces. 

In fact, Commander Tiger has brought all victories to the Syrian Army.  He successfully takes advantage of psychological warfare techniques by using large speakers to echo messages of fear and threat to the enemy.

It appears that the new developments in Syria have been accelerating, because, on the one hand, the United States and Turkey are discussing the creation of a secure area, and on the other hand, the fate of the east of the Euphrates region is still unclear as the terrorists’ attacks in Hama and Idlib are intensifying. 

Since the Syrian general has visited the northern suburbs of Hama and Idlib, evidently surprising developments are on the way. Of course, the battle will be tough since the most ruthless U.S.- and Western-backed terrorists are in the province of Idlib and they carry a chemical attack after each successful Syrian military operation. 

We just have to wait and see what the fate of the most important front in Syria will be.

Al-Kaabi: al-Nujaba follows the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist

In an exclusive interview, the secretary general of al-Nujaba applauded the attempts and endeavours made by Islamic Republic of Iran for prevention from the plots made by the enemies against Islam, and then said, al-Nujaba Movement religiously follows the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist.

According to Qods News Agency (Qodsna), al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance, as an Islamic-Jihadi Group, based mainly in Iraq, believes in Islamic principles and values as well as the absolute rule of Islam. The name of the group is an inspiration drawn from the sermon, “...ألا فالعجب کل العجب لقتل حزب الله النُجَباء بحزب الشیطان الطلقاء...”, delivered by Zaynab, PBuH, in Syria.

In 2004, al-Nujaba was a simple Resistance group, started to cooperate with some revolutionary elites, and then developed and currently, more than 10000 fighters are under its command across different regions in Iraq, and now it is active in different areas, including military, social, cultural, media, religious and  etc.

The US Treasury Ministry, through the Executive Order no.13438, on 16 September 2008, put the secretary general of al-Nujaba, “Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi” on its blacklist and prosecution. But nine years later, on 4 November 2017, Washington took another hostile step, and Ted Poe, Texas Representative submitted the bill no. H. R. 4238, imposing sanctions on al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance, to the US Congress.

Qods News Agency (Qodsna) did a specific interview with Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi. In the interview, he firstly stressed that the Resistance groups should urgently employ the Islamic potential hidden in seminaries and the grand Source of Emulations, and then described the said relation as the guarantee for the life and salvation of the Resistance.

Pointing to the plots made by the US for decomposition of Islamic states and debilitation of the Resistance, the secretary general of al-Nujaba stated, “in the past, the enemies divided the Islamic states based on Sykes–Picot Agreement and currently they attempt to divide Muslims to religious, racial and ethnic groups”.

Stressing that “without the honourable position adopted by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the sanctity of the holy places would be violated by the savage Takfiri groups, the innocent would be killed and countries would be ruined”, he pointed out, “al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance religiously follows Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist”.

The full text of the interview is as below:

How is the relation of al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance with Najaf and Qom Seminaries? And what is the stand of the Sources of Emulations about the Movement?

- Islamic Resistance firmly believes that seminaries, as the owners of sciences and principles of the conduct of the prophet and Ahl al-Bayt, PBuT, are the showcase and flag of Islam and the indestructible fountains of science. We believe on the sanctity of all the Sources of Emulation, as they are the brilliant stars among Muslims and they are the guides to the path of Truth and Direction.

We emphasize on the relation with the Seminaries and the religious Sources of Emulation, especially Qom and Najaf ones, so that the direct path is the way of our salvation and resistance.

And the Sources of Emulation have always received us with much hospitality and kindness and they have also provided us with their advice and supports, and accordingly we believe al-Nujaba Movement won’t survive in case it doesn’t follow the Sources of Emulation, and if it neglects the brilliant ideology, the heavenly instructions, wisdom and experience of these grand characters.

The US has long attempted to decompose the countries of the region, including Iraq. What will be the impacts of this dangerous project in your opinion?

- the plots made by the US are aimed at debilitation of Islamic states, schism and attacking the ideology and culture of Muslim states so that it can plunder their wealth and carry out its expansionist and colonising plans.

The enemies divided the Muslim countries based on Sykes–Picot Agreement. Today they also attempt to divide Muslim countries to religious, racial and ethnic groups and whatever has been done is for the execution of the colonising plots.

These plot will be foiled solely through commitment to the ideology of Imam Khumeini, that was established based on the reinforcement of the Islamic unity and avoidance of division, the thought that introduced Quds as the flag and slogan of all the Muslims; therefore we observe that Imam Khumeini innovatively named the last Friday of Ramadan month as the day of Quds so that it reminds Muslims of three elements of unity, Ramadhan month, the superiority of Friday and Quds as the first Qibla of Muslims, and for Muslims know their true enemy and their elements of power.

Accordingly, without unity and knowing their true enemies, Muslim nations won’t be able to stand against the plots of their enemies.

What are the similarities and commonalities between al-Nujaba and other groups of the Resistance Axis? And what is/are different between al-Nujaba and those groups?

- we respect the ideas and the way the other Resistance groups act, even if they are slightly different from us, as each group has its own way and style of management.

The targets and the ways of helping people to solve their problems differentiate these groups; therefore we introduced no candidate in the recent elections in Iraq so that we can share the problems and hardships of the nation, and in order that we can attempt, in an arranged and mobilised manner, to provide the nation with culture and wisdom and serve them to the point feasible to us.

Through these attempts we only seek the consent of God and on the Way of Imam Mahdi, we try to attain Resistance.

How are decisions made in al-Nujaba Movement?

al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance religiously follows the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, and for the management of its affairs and making decisions, it follows the institutional and scientific methods; therefore we have established some research centres and formed some advisory councils so that we can definitely make proper decisions.

How do you assess the part played by the Islamic Republic of Iran in both military and cultural areas in the fight against enemy?

- Islamic Republic of Iran has played an important role in the fight against terrorism, as this country supports the oppressed and defends the rights of the Muslims across the world. We found the men of Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist pious on the days and courageous at nights, and without the honourable position of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the sanctity of the holy places would be violated by the savage Takfiri groups, the innocent would be killed and countries would be ruined.

Takfiri groups, as the proxies of the world Zionism, fight to divert Jihad and liberation efforts from Quds, in order to drag the Islamic countries to war, to debilitate Muslim countries and to prepare the ground for the implementation of the evil plans of the enemies.

If God didn’t helped us through Islamic Republic of Iran, we would experience a horribly devastating conditions; but strong Islam, moving forward as fast as development and civilization, as an obstacle defending the Muslims, stood against the enemies.