Khamenei’s Representative: DAESH Is Not a Critical Issue

Rooz Online

Mohsen Ghomi, a cleric who is an advisor on international affairs in the office of Iran’s supreme leader and a member of the exclusive Assembly of Experts on Leadership announced at an interview that there was no concern about the spread of DAESH-type views in the country. DAESH is the Arabic acronym for the self-proclaimed Islamic State or ISIS.

As reported by Iran’s ISNA student news agency, Ghomi stressed that the philosophy of DAESH has no place among Muslims and added, “The polls conducted on people in the region a significant number of them said that they do not view DAESH to be an Islamic group but rather than a terrorist group which aims to harm Islam.”

Ghomi who is also ayatollah Khamenei’s representative at the country’s Council on the Cultural Revolution, rejected the concerns about the spreads of DAESH’s worldview in Iran and said, “Our youth have attained a level of maturity through which they know this philosophy is completely un-human and un-Islamic and we fortunately do not a serious or critical issue regarding this in Iran.”

He continued, “Concern about cultural issues is a positive issue because humans are flexible and it is good to take preventive measures about cultural possibilities so that we are not caught off guard at sensitive moments. On the other hand, issues should not be blown out of proportion because they create despair. Iranian Sunni clerics individually and as a group unilaterally condemned DAESH’s views right from the beginning.”

These remarks by Ghomi come after months of various statements by other authorities of the Islamic republic who had expressed serious concerns about the infiltration of DAESH into Iran and some even saying that the danger was greater than ever. For example, some time ago on the anniversary of the liberation of the port city of Khoramshahr from Iraqi forces, Revolutionary Guard general Ghasem Soleymani had said, “We must know that DAESH which kills hundreds of people more easily than killing sheep under the cries of Allah-o Akbar is a big danger. If people are not made aware of this danger and do not strive to remove it, we shall be accomplice to a future catastrophe and removing this is in our national interest.” Elsewhere in his remarks he also said, “Today only the Islamic republic is confronting DAESH.”

At about the same time, the commander of Iran’s ground forces, general Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan had revealed that “DAESH groups had infiltrated the central provinces and had planned food, arms and forces and had prepared to assassinate, create explosions and chaos on entering the region, which were neutralized by the warriors of this country. Today, we see the footprints of DAESH in Afghanistan and Pakistan and they are preparing themselves.”

These remarks had come after ayatollah Khamenei told a group of servicemen in May, “I have news that our enemies, along with some authorities in the Persian Gulf region – not all of them – are striving to start war on their behalf near our borders. The guards of the Revolutionary Guards force and all defenders of national security in various agencies are awake and alert. They should know that if some mischief takes place, the response of the Islamic republic will be very hard.”

But the danger of DAESH in Iran cannot be justified unless there is some support for its views among the populace. DAESH’s occupation of half the territory of Syria and Iraq would not have been possible without some public support. After the group’s birth and expansion in the region, and especially in Iraq, officials of the Islamic republic were not willing to accept that the group had some support among the locals in the neighboring countries. In reality, influence among the local populations was part of the problem which had been partly fueled by the Islamic republic in Iraq. After a few months, authorities of the Islamic republic realized and accepted that the issue of DAESH was not simply related to a group of a few thousand armed men.

In this regard, ayatollah Ahmad Janati, the secretary of the Guardian Council had said, “DAESH recruits individuals who have a revolutionary and jihadi perspective. Clerics in Islamic countries must create stronger bonds with people (to prevent this). He continued, “Today, many young people who join DAESH do so because of their pursuit of Islam. But because they do not understand Islam they fall prey to DAESH and its philosophy. Individuals who want to join DAESH and other similar extremist groups must be identified and enlightened. The presence of this youth among DAESH is unfortunately because clerics do not have contact with them.”

Others too such as Guard general Iraj Masjedi, an advisor in the Ghods force of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) had warned, “DAESH is an ideological movement and a belief which makes fighting them very difficult. And even though they have an armed wing this is still an ideological movement which attracts young people from America and Britain. They think that God’s Prophet is waiting for them to put on a suicide belt and blow themselves up so they can go to heaven.”

Iran’s minister of intelligence recently had revealed that “Elements of extremist and terrorist thought (such as those followed by DAESH) who had a plot to confiscate weapons in Tehran and bomb the shrine of Fatima in Ghom, have been identified and smashed. Cells that have links with DAESH have been uncovered and their equipment confiscated. We see that those who plan to make the Islamic republic unsafe have failed. This is not an accident.”

The concerns that authorities of the Islamic republic have been expressing about the danger of DAESH in Iran are not unrelated to the possible grounds that exist for the group to attract supporters in the country. But some authorities downplay the threat of DAESH for fear of worsening the situation.

On May 28th, Iran’s minister of defense general Hossein Dehghan announced that DAESH is not a serious danger for the Islamic republic. “DAESH terrorist grouping does not have the power or capacity to threaten Iranian frontiers and so we do not view the group as a threat to us. Iranian society too is not accepting of this terrorist group.” But his reference to “Iranian society” is indicative of the concerns that others have about sympathy for the group’s philosophy and ideology among Iranians.