Azadeh Mirrazi

Two days after a senior official from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence announced that an ‎Iranian businessman charged with spying had been executed, and spoke of the ‎heightening intelligence war between Iran and Israel, the supreme commander of the ‎Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced the discovery and arrest of a ‎‎“nuclear spy ring” and a “heavy blow against Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency at the ‎hands of the Passdaran.” This is despite the repeated assurances of Iranian authorities that ‎the country’s nuclear activities have no links to military institutions of the country, and ‎the law establishing the ministry of intelligence confines the mission of this ministry to ‎confronting security threats, particularly espionage.‎

Speaking to Sepah News (the official news agency of the Passdaran Corps) General Aziz ‎Jaafari announced the discovery and destruction of an Israeli spy network in Iran by ‎Passdaran’s intelligence and security forces, it declared that this network had “ties to the ‎military institutions of the country,” adding that the spy ring was engaged in gathering ‎intelligence on Iranian military commanders and centers. In the past, the ministry had ‎made similar claims about Ali Ashtari who was accused of spying for Israel and was ‎executed last week in Iran. In Ashtari’s case too, it was announced that he was connected ‎to the Iranian defense industries who intended to steal intelligence data by selling ‎polluted equipment to Iran Defense Industries and other sensitive institutions.‎

Iran and Israel have in the past repeatedly accused each other of espionage for the other ‎country and individuals have been arrested and tried on such charges in both countries. ‎The Islamic Republic has on a number of occasions officially accused Israel of satellite ‎espionage against Iran and even attributed some of he social unrest and anti-security ‎incidents and ethnic disturbances in Iran to Israel. Earlier this year, Israel too arrested and ‎charged and tried an Israeli military officer for spying for Iran.‎

The newly established Sepah News news agency launched by the Passdaran’s office of ‎public relations quoted the supreme Passdaran commander as saying, “With the ‎destruction of this espionage network, the sophisticated and advanced communications ‎systems, and modern infrastructure and camouflaging related to Mossad had been ‎discovered and confiscated.”‎

Training of Nuclear Spies in Israel
Soon after Iran’s official state news agency IRNA quoted the Passdaran news site in this ‎regard, it corrected its news coverage and added the term “Nuclear” to the title ‎‎“Destruction of an Espionage Network” in its news, in an effort to emphasize Israel’s ‎determination to engage in nuclear espionage against Iran and the role of the Passdaran in ‎uncovering and destroying it.‎

The commander is quoted to have said, “This network had received special bombing and ‎terror training in Israel and had purchased a lot of equipment and vehicles through ‎financial support of Mossad,” while also promising to announce shortly greater details of ‎the case through the media.‎

The announcement of the arrest of a new spy ring comes just a few days after the first ‎open trial of the suspects in connection with the bomb explosions at a mosque in Shiraz. ‎In that case too, the ministry of intelligence had announced that the accused belonged to a ‎terrorist group and had taken measures to bomb a number of places in Iran. Another ‎charge added to that list was the planning of the group to assassinate the leader of the ‎Islamic regime.‎

The Military and Intelligence Work
The announcement by the supreme Passdaran commander of the discovery by the ‎Passdaran contrasts with the mission of the force as defined in the law that created it. The ‎law defines the force as a military force which lacks the authority to engage in ‎intelligence activities, and particularly “counter-intelligence.”‎

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, counter-intelligence activities are the sphere of the ‎Ministry of Intelligence and this has been stressed in the laws that created the Passdaran. ‎To accomplish this, the Ministry of Intelligence established a deputy for intelligence ‎activities and all political and security agencies and offices in the country have been ‎tasked to provide their intelligence regarding espionage to this office.‎

While the Passdaran has a long history of competition with the Ministry of Intelligence ‎over intelligence and security activities, its two divisions named Intelligence Protection ‎and Deputy for Intelligence, this work is a duplication of what the Ministry does in the ‎sphere of intelligence gathering in the context of its security activities.‎

It was precisely because of this parallelism that during the reform years in Iran - i.e. the ‎period when Mohammad Khatami was the president from 1997 to 2005 - many reports ‎were published indicating Passdaran’s confrontations with political, civil and media ‎activists in the country. These reports even included details about secret detention centers ‎run by Passdaran’s intelligence unit which kept non-military individuals.‎

Passdaran’s Activities in the Nuclear Field
But this recent news announcement may be the first time that the role of Passdaran is ‎expressly mentioned in relation to “counter intelligence” activities, which is supposed to ‎include only its own personnel and which must report any counter security activities ‎outside the force to the Ministry of Intelligence. The issue becomes even more prominent ‎when the discovery of a nuclear espionage ring is attributed to the Passdaran and its ‎Intelligence Protection wing. It should be noted that during the recent years Iranian ‎diplomats have been making an all-out effort to deny any connection between the ‎country’s military institutions and nuclear research activities, while stressing that Iran’s ‎nuclear activities and programs are purely for research and scientific, and not military or ‎operational. In his latest interview general Jaafari did not explain what the relationship ‎between Passdaran’s Intelligence Protection bureau and the country’s nuclear programs ‎which led to this military force’s discovery of spies in connection with nuclear programs.‎