Leaked Iranian intelligence report reveals fratricide

A leaked classified report by Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi reveals intense fratricide at the highest levels of the Islamic Republic, as well as staggering levels of official corruption.

The report, made public by a reformist dissident news organization inside Iran, has received little publicity in the outside world.

The reformist news group, GreenCorrespondents.com, provides a full context and commentary in Persian about the leaked document. The commentary is consistent with the Green Movement’s line that the Islamic Republic should be preserved but reformed. Here are the main facts in the report, based on the leaked intelligence document, as IranChannel has translated from the original Persian language:

1. President Ahmadinejad’s allies in the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) have spied on the clergy and mobilized against them. The IRGC intelligence unit, headed by Hojatoleslam Taeb, has put significant pressure on clergy critical of Ahmadinejad (and presumably supportive of Supreme Leader Khamenei) by planting listening devices in their classrooms and offices, and by employing coercive measures to pressure them to approve some of Ahmadinejad’s policies. IRGC intelligence harassment of clerics continued to the point that two clerics threatened retaliatory action. In response, IRGC guards were deployed in large numbers in the city of Qom, site of Iran’s principal seminaries, to suppress further anti-Ahmadinejad activity.

2. Supreme Leader Khamenei’s policies of oil nepotism have outraged Ahmadinejad. The Supreme Leader’s sudden decision to place oil revenues under the control of a three-man board headed by his son, Mojtaba, outraged Ahmadinejad, who has railed against official high-level corruption. In his first cabinet meeting following the Supreme Leader’s decision, Ahmadinejad used colorful language to slam Mojtaba Khamenei and his entourage, calling the move offensive.

3. Ahmadinejad is trying to purge the Intelligence Ministry. The president gave Intelligence Minister Moslehi a list of 45 senior Intelligence Ministry officers, requesting their dismissal or early retirement. Ahmadinejad said that the IRGC’s intelligence unit had determined that the 45 had not shown their loyalty to the presidential administration (and by inference, were loyal to the clerics led by Khamenei), and said they must be replaced by individuals to be recommended by the office of the presidency. In his report, Moslehi states that Ahmadinejad’s list of 45 top officers was a big blow to his ministry.

4. IRGC is suspected of bugging Intelligence Ministry offices for Ahmadinejad. Apparently Moslehi had to hire new officers from the IRGC intelligence unit. Moslehi reports that after the IRGC men were transferred to the Intelligence Ministry, a number of listening devices were discovered in sensitive areas of the ministry and were illegally recording information. Moslehi’s report specifies that the listening devices had been planted in the leadership compound (details not specified), with Ahmadinejad’s knowledge but unbeknown to the Ministry of Intelligence.

5. Ahmadinejad intelligence faction secretly met with American officers. Last February, according to Moslehi’s report, a group of intelligence officers close to Ahmadinejad traveled to Dubai under the guise of a trade council and met with two American political and military officials.

6. Supreme Leader’s oil contracts seen as unjustified. Moslehi’s report cites a confidential letter to parliament and an official statement to the Ministry of Intelligence from the Ministry of Industries, in which the latter announced that it could not justify the opaque oil contracts under the Khamenei family scheme between Iran and China and Iran and Malaysia. The Ministry of Industries says it it completely uninformed about the contracts’ provisions.

7. Oil Ministry reports massive diversions of oil and revenue and billions in IRGC corruption. In February 2011, the Oil Ministry sent the parliamentary Energy Committee a confidential report, stating that it had no information about the amount of oil being exported through the 10th pipeline. The Oil Ministry said it could not accept responsibility for that pipeline because the petroduct was not under its control. Export revenues from that pipeline, according to the Oil Ministry, were not being returned to Iran. Underwater pipelines of Kish have been constructed jointly by the IRGC and the Chinese, resulting in more than $3 billion annually in diverted funds.The Ministry has no knowledge of where or how that $3 billion in revenue is received and deposited. The Oil Ministry also reported the embezzlement of $580 million that was traced to two personal accounts in Malaysia, and $2.6 billion in embezzled funds traced to two accounts in Shanghai that belong to senior IRGC commanders.

8. IRGC won’t report on its own oil construction revenues. The Oil Minister formally complained about the failure of Rahim Safavi, an IRGC commander, to provide any reports of the activities of Khatam-al-anbia, the IRGC construction division that has been awarded some of the largest oil contracts in Iran.

9. Ahmadinejad steered secret deals to IRGC. Parliamentary Energy Committee Chairman Hamid Katouzian complained in a confidential legislative session about the non-transparency of all enterprises awarded to the IRGC by Ahmadinejad’s direct orders. The “foreign exchange cost” alone of one such project, according to the report, was stated at $6.7 billion.

10. IRGC commanders interfere in oil contracts. Intelligence Minister Moslehi reports about unjustified interference by IRGC commanders in all oil contracts. In some instances, IRGC commanders order certain contracts to be broken and re-signed with other parties.

11. Secret IRGC contracts with China are illegal. Moslehi reports that the IRGC has drawn up new contracts with Chinese partners, some of which were without legal authorization and were kept from parliament. These questionable or unauthorized contracts are worth an estimated $58 billion, at least $14 billion of which has not been returned to Iran as required.

12. Full-scale feud between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei’s son. Intelligence Minister Moslehi reports that a tension between Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is escalating to a full-scale feud.

News of Moslehi’s report adds context to Khamenei’s repeated warnings that regime leaders keep their allegations of corruption secret from the public.

Iran Channel