December 04, 2011

The Quds force man who inspired the British embassy outrage in Tehran

The young men who stormed Britain's embassy have a hero - the Islamic hardliner who may be the most dangerous man in Iran. 
Qassem Suleimani
Qassem Suleimani, an Islamic hardliner spoiling for a fight with the West 

His is not a face familiar to many in the West. But members of the rampaging Iranian mob which last week laid siege to the British Embassy in Tehran knew exactly what they were doing when they held aloft a picture of a grey-haired man, with downturned mouth and his beard more neatly trimmed than those of his country's religious leaders.
Qassem Suleimani, a fanatical Islamic revolutionary, has rapidly become one of the world's top terrorist suspects, as well as a powerful and sinister force within Iran.
The crowd of enraged student protesters who chanted "Death to Britain" as they terrorised a beleaguered group of British diplomats, know him as the head of Iran's feared Quds Force, the 15,000-strong paramilitary wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards - and a primary suspect for organising the assault on the embassy.
There were frightening moments at the height of the violence on Tuesday afternoon when it appeared that a rerun might be on the cards of the American embassy siege in 1979, when 50 American diplomatic staff were held hostage for 444 days.
If so, it would have been a triumph for Suleimani, who would have made common cause with the hardliners of 1979 who opposed the deal which eventually led to the release of the Americans.
Now that Dominick Chilcott, Britain's ambassador to Iran, and the rest of the British delegation and their families are safely back in Britain, the details of the full horror of last week's assault can be told. And there can be no doubt that the beleaguered group of British diplomats and their staff have had a very lucky escape indeed.
At the height of the violence on Tuesday afternoon Mr Chilcott, a Foreign Office high flyer who had been in Iran barely a month, was obliged to hide in an upstairs room while protesters destroyed portraits of British monarchs and scrawled graffiti on the walls downstairs.
He said: "We could hear them trying to smash the doors and buildings down below," after British security officials staged an emergency evacuation of all the embassy staff.
"They couldn't get into our part of the building except in one point, where they got into one of our consular offices and started a fire. In the end it was the fire and smoke coming up onto the third floor corridor which forced us out."

Mr Chilcott was able to escape to a pre-arranged secure location. But not all the staff were so lucky. "One was on his own in his safe area and he barricaded the door with a heavy safe and a bed, and braced himself against the wall. For 45 minutes he could hear people bashing down the door, smashing the windows and trying to get in because they knew he was there. It must have been a very frightening experience – eventually the door gave in and they got him."
Together with six other embassy staff the diplomat was briefly taken hostage by the Iranian protesters and taken to another building and made to sit quietly, with some of them being "quite roughly handled" until they were eventually freed.
A senior Foreign Office official yesterday said that none of those held captive had suffered serious injury. Even so, there is a widespread acknowledgement within Whitehall that the occupation of the embassy was a close-run thing, and could easily have resulted in another Iranian-inspired hostage situation, with all the implications that would have had for David Cameron's government.
The US Embassy siege, which started soon after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, effectively ended Jimmy Carter's presidency. The only reason a major diplomatic crisis was averted this time was because Tehran's police, which initially did nothing to prevent the protesters storming the building, were belatedly ordered to act, removing the demonstrators and ensuring the safety of the British diplomats.

It is now thought the police were acting on the orders of officials loyal to President Mahmound Ahmadinejad, who was unwilling to provoke yet another crisis with the West at a time when Iran is already under intense international pressure over its controversial nuclear programme.
But the crisis could so easily have gone the other way, especially if hardliners such as Suleimani, who owe their loyalty to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's spiritual leader and is a bitter political rival of Mr Ahmadinejad, had got their way. As head the elite Quds force, whose primary objective is to export Iran's revolutionary breed of Islam throughout the Muslim world, the 52-year-old Suleimani, could just as easily launched another hostage crisis in the Middle East.
In 1979 it was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian revolution, who effectively sanctioned the abduction of 50 American diplomats, after he decided that an open confrontation with Washington over the hostages would help to consolidate support for his new Islamic government among ordinary Iranians, who have a long-standing resentment of British and American meddling in Iranian affairs.
At a time when relations between the West and Iran are reaching crisis point, with reports that America, Britain and Israel are giving serious consideration to launching military strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, Suleimani and his supporters would have been deeply attracted to the notion of instigating a 2011 hostage crisis.

Speaking after his arrival in London Mr Chilcott made it clear that he believed the attack on the embassy had been well-organised and had the backing of the Iranian government. "Iran is not the sort of country where spontaneously a demonstration congregates then attacks a foreign embassy," he said. "That sort of activity is only done with the acquiescence and support of the state."
Last week's dramatic events at the British Embassy were almost certianly part of a bitter power struggle within the Iranian regime, in which Suleimani is increasingly taking a central role.
For those Iranians who subscribe to the uncompromising, conservative dogma espoused by Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini as the regime's spiritual leader when he died in 1989, Suleiman has recently emerged as an iconic figure, not least because of his role in spear-heading Iran's attempts to support radical Muslim groups through the Arab world.

Suleiman first came to prominence in the West during the bitter insurgency in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, when the Quds force actively supported and equipped the Shia militias in their war against American and British forces. At the height of the insurgency the Quds force had an estimated 30,000 Iraqi militants on its payroll, and formed a close alliance with Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery Iraqi cleric who led that assault on American troops.
Many Iranians believe Suleiman has ruthlessly used his appointment as head of the Quds Force, which was formed during Iran's eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, to further his own political ambitions. This was certainly the impression he sought to give when, in 2008, he sent General David Petraeus, the current CIA director who was then commanding US forces in Iraq, a phone text informing him that he should always deal with Suleimani if he wanted a discussion of Iranian foreign policy.
"General Petraeus," the text read, "you should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan. The ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who's going to replace him is a Quds Force member."
Indeed, as a result of the Quds Force's success in disrupting the US-led coalition in Iraq, Suleimani has been able to expand his control over Iran's overseas policy. The Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan is a Quds Force member, while Quds Force units have been sent to Syria to support the Assad regime's barbaric campaign to silence anti-government protests.

The Quds force, which takes its name from the Arabic for Jerusalem, actively supports a number of radical Islamist groups throughout the Middle East that are committed to the destruction of Israel, such as Hizbollah in Lebanon and Gaza. Israeli forces have intercepted several weapons caches bound for Hamas militants in Gaza and Hizbollah in southern Lebanon.
Western intelligence agencies have also identified Quds Force activity further field. Nigerian security officials recently arrested two Quds officers following the seizure of an illegal arms shipment in Lagos. A Quds unit travelled to Libya in September following the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime and smuggled hundreds of surface-to-air missiles and other weapons out of the country.
And recently they have been active in encouraging dissident Shia activists in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province to overthrow the Saudi royal family, as well as supporting various dissident Islamist groups in the Gulf.
Suleiman's emergence as a major international terrorist, though, came after American investigators accused him of masterminding the recent plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in Washington when he was dining in his favourite restaurant.

The two suspects, who will be tried next year, are said to be active Quds Force members, and the Obama administration responded to the failed plot by placing Suleimani on its specially designated list of global terrorists. Suleimani responded by saying he did not fear American threats of assassination, and that he was ready for "martyrdom".
As the Western powers gird themselves for another round of diplomatic confrontation with the ayatollahs, it seems that Suleimani is destined to play a central role in the challenging months that lie ahead.

Con Coughlin is the author of Khomeini's Ghost (Pan Books)

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