The founding member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Habib Barzegari, has died of the Wuhan coronavirus, Saudi TV network Al Arabiya reported Tuesday citing Iranian state media. Barzegari was also among the advisers to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, news reports say.
With this latest high-profile death, the outbreak has claimed several senior members of the Iranian regime, including several IRGC commanders, Khamenei’s top aides, and senior regime officials.
IRGC, created in the wake of the 1979 Islamic takeover of the country, has been behind numerous terrorist attacks in the West and the Middle East since its inception. In April 2019, President Trump designated IRGC as a terrorist organization as part of his policy of ‘maximum pressure’ on the Iranian regime.
The Wuhan coronavirus, which has gripped large parts of Iran, has also decimated IRGC’s leadership, crippling the Iranian regime’s ability to carry out acts of terror beyond its borders. The coronavirus has forced Tehran to scale back its international terrorist activities in the wake of the outbreak, the spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces confirmed earlier this month.
Barzegari is not the only Khamenei aide to succumb to the coronavirus. Mohammad Mirmohammadi, another of his aides, also died early March after contracting the disease. Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s ‘foreign policy’ adviser, also tested positive for the virus. Velayati is wanted for masterminding the 1994 car bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 85 people, injuring hundreds of others.
Saudi broadcaster Al Arabiya reported Barzegari death:
Habib Barzegari, a founding member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has died of coronavirus, state media reported on Tuesday.Barzegari was a founding member of the IRGC in the city of Meybod in Iran’s central province of Yazd, according to state media.Barzegari was also an advisor to the representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Meybod.At least 16 Iranian regime figures have died from coronavirus since the beginning of the outbreak in the Islamic Republic.
IRGC, the Iranian regime’s military arm, has founded and armed several proxy terrorist groups across the Muslim world, foremost among them being the Lebanese terrorist militia Hezbollah. IRGC’s foreign terrorist wing, the Al Qods force is waging a terrorist campaign against the U.S. and allied troops in Iraq and is reportedly responsible for the murder of thousands of U.S. troops in the region. The head of the Al Qods forces, Qassem Soleimani, who died in a U.S. airstrike in December, was alone behind the killing of at least 600 American servicemen and women, the Pentagon disclosed.
Given close ties between Iran’s IRGC and Hezbollah, the life-threatening virus has been transmitted to the Lebanese terror militia as well. “Hezbollah members were reportedly infected with the highly transmissible contagion after coming into contact with affected Iranian military officials during a meeting in Beirut last week,” Israel broadcaster i24News recently reported. Both IRGC and Hezbollah are at the forefront of the jihad declared by Iran’s Ayatollah against the United States. The call to jihad, or all-out Islamic war, was renewed in January by the Iranian Supreme Leader in response to the killing of Soleimani.
Nationwide, the coronavirus has claimed 2,234 Iranian lives and infected close to 30,000. The U.S. has exempted all humanitarian and medical from sanctions on Iran.
On Sunday, Iran kicked out the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) from the country. MSF, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, had flown medical supplies to set up field hospitals in Iran. The presence of independent foreign medical personnel would apparently hamper the regime’s efforts to suppress the actual extent of the outbreak. Recent satellite imagery showed authorities digging mass graves to cover up its failure in dealing with the disease.
Instead of letting ordinary Iranians get medical and humanitarian aid, the regime chose to spread vile conspiracy theories. On Sunday, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei claimed that the virus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, was actually an American creation “specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians.” Rejecting a humanitarian offer extended by Washington, Khamenei, who is also the spiritual leader of Shia Muslims, accused the U.S. of seeking to spread the disease further in the guise of medical assistance.
[Cover image via Twitter]
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