The Sting of the I.R.G.C. 'Mosquito Boats'

"The Islamic Republican Guard Corps navy works more like a guerrilla force at sea."

"It is focused on asymmetrical warfare, especially in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz."

"So instead of relying on big warships and classic naval battles, it depends on hit-and-run attacks."

Saeid Golkar, Guards expert, political science professor, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

 

"When it is very bumpy, they [armed forces onboard] cannot shoot."

"[They are also ill-equipped to go head to head with a ​warship, and would likely suffer] very heavy casualties [​in any direct assault on one]."

"Even if they tried to saturate the ship’s defences by attacking from multiple directions, they would be extremely vulnerable to the air support that would be called in."

"It is going to be ​much harder to eliminate ⁠the small boat threat than it was to destroy Iran’s larger naval vessels, which were big targets that were relatively easy to find and track and, at most, only had a limited ability to defend themselves from air attack." 

Jeremy Binnie, Middle East specialist, defence intelligence company Janes 

The IRGC speed boats are fast, light, and easily replaceable. NurPhoto via Getty Images

It all began when recreational boats were mounted with rocket-propelled grenades or machine guns, when Iran first began using small boats that were fast, maneuverable, and deadly when patrolling the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Those recreational craft underwent a  transformation when a range of specially designed small boats, along with miniature submarines and marine drones were built to the IRGC specifications, over the years. That 'mosquito fleet' of small boats has become a real and present threat in the Strait as a consequence of the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.

 

The flotilla of small, fast boats whose purpose by the IRGC has been to harass local and international shipping through the Gulf, has turned now to threatening and firing upon global shipping in the Strait of Hormuz during the recent face-off between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran -- or what's left of it, aside from the IRGC. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is separate and apart from the regular Navy of Iran, which had been struck a cataclysmic blow in the opening days of the aerial bombardment. 

 

Over 90 percent of Iran's navy's fleet was destroyed, according to U.S. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They all, including the country's major warships, were sunk and sit now on the ocean's bottom. At the same time, an estimated 50 percent of the fast attack boats belonging to the Guards were sunk. Estimates of the total number of these small ships prior to the U.S. sinking of the fleet ranged from hundreds to thousands. They are still not now in short supply. 

 

Arrival of new shipment of IRGC fastboats. Photo via Mehdi H

 

The size of the boats make them mostly invisible on satellite images from where they're moored alongside piers, where the  excavation of deep caves along the rocky coastline shelters them, prepared for deployment at a moment's notice. During the current conflict, at least 20 vessels were attacked by the 'mosquito fleet', according to the International Maritime Agency. Analysts consider the attacks to have been by drones fired from mobile launchers on land.

 

As for the small boat arsenal which poses a major threat to commercial shipping both in the Gulf and the Strait, "It remains a disruptive force. You never quite knew what they were up to and what their intentions were", commented Admiral Gary Roughead, retired chief of U.S. Naval Operations. "The IRGC navy has always believed that it is at the forefront of the confrontation with the Great Satan", added specialist on the Guards navy, Farzin Nadimi from the Washington Institute think tank.

 

According to experts, these small boats can reach speeds of over 100 knots. Larger, more sophisticated warships were also recently developed by the Guards, and they too were targeted when the U.S. bombardments focused on bombing Iran's naval fleet as well as its fleet of warplanes. The largest drone carrier, the Shahid Bagheri, a converted container ship able to launch anti-ship missiles, was also hit by U.S. air strikes.

 

It is the swarms of small boats that pose an ongoing threat to commercial vessels which have no defences against such attacks. U.S. warships, on the other hand, can counter a potential swam of small boats with their high-caliber cannons and additional weaponry.  

 

60 percent of IRGC fast boats still threaten shipping lanes: WSJ

 

"Disrupting and Degrading and Blinding Iran's Ability to See, Communicate and Respond"

"The Iranians are throwing everything they have at this."

"It is all hands on deck."

"If their cyber operators are breathing, then they will be on their keyboards."

Chris Krebs, former director, Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CSIA) 

 

"An Iran-linked group calling itself Handala claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Portage, Michigan-based medical device maker Stryker Corp., carried out on March 11, 2026. Handala said the attack was in retaliation for events related to the conflict in Iran."

"The cyberattack affected Stryker’s internal Microsoft software system, disrupting the company’s order processing, manufacturing and shipping."

"As a scholar who researches cyber conflict, I’ve found that in periods of geopolitical tension such as the current U.S./Israel-Iran war, cyber operations often sit right next to missiles and airstrikes as a tool that states and state-linked groups use to inflict damage, probe weaknesses and signal resolve to their enemies."

"The Stryker case is notable because it shows how quickly a regional conflict can translate into disruption for organizations far from the battlefield. It also illustrates the vulnerabilities of U.S. organizations, including those involved in critical infrastructure."

William Akoto, Assistant Professor of Global Security, American University School of International Service, The Conversation  

Iran has long had sophisticated hacking operations. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Gettyimages

 

Thousands of Israelis earlier this month received texts purportedly from the IDF that encouraged them to download a fake shelter app. Had they done so, reams of personal data could have been stolen. This, while others in Israel received a mass text that said: "Netanyahu is dead. Death is approaching you and soon the gates of hell will open before you. Before the fire of Iranian missiles destroys you, leave Palestine." An obvious play to strew panic and demoralization. According to cybersecu3rity experts, these messages represent a minuscule portion of a vast cyberwar between Iran, Israel and the United States.

 

Iranian hackers who have stabled themselves in the digital shadows for years are considered among the most reliably battle-hardened operatives Tehran can depend upon in this aspect of the Islamic Republic's existential war of survival. The ploy of sowing fear in the Israeli and American public is a powerful yet little-appreciated weapon remaining at the disposal of the Iranian regime, hoping to see some satisfying results in public chaos and a move in both countries to call off the conflict. These tactics, familiar to both Israeli and American cyber experts who have long engaged in their own counter battle, employ their own.

 

Three different levels of cyber operators have been identified in Iran, with boundaries that are frequently blurry, according to analysts and former cybersecurity officials. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence operate the most experienced corps of cyber hackers, with a wide array of front organizations whose purpose is to introduce plausible deniability for attacks and the issuance of public threats.

 

Semi-autonomous hacking proxies, cybercriminals and contractors are also in the hire of the Islamic Republic, with volunteer hackers bringing up the rear to mobilize behind Tehran. Israel-based employees of a large U.S. defence contractor are believed by cyber experts to have been doxxed. Emails of politicians in Albania which hosts an Iranian opposition group have received similar treatment, while a Polish nuclear research centre has been infiltrated. The most sensitive espionage is thought to have gone unreported.

 

A hacking front named as Handala is believed by cybersecurity researchers and the American government to be tied to Iranian intelligence; the hacking group claimed to have wiped 200,000 devices in the most consequential wartime cyber attack against the U.S. ever seen, according to one of the most senior civilian U.S. cybersecurity officials, Chris Krebs. It was Handala that claimed to have broken into FBI director Kash Patel's personal email account, to publish personal photographs.

 

Iranian hackers, no matter their level and association, are not quite the match of the U.S. and Israel with their formidable offensive capabilities, an illustration being the significant damage the Iranian nuclear program sustained in 2009 with the unleashing of the mysterious Stuxnet offensive. According to General Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the U.S. launched cyber attacks just prior to the February 28 airstrikes on Iran "disrupting and degrading and blinding Iran's ability to see, communicate and respond".

 

Years ago, Israel's cyber intelligence dealt one of the most telling blows of the war, when it hacked the majority of traffic cameras in Tehran as part of an extensive intelligence-gathering operation preceeding supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's assassination. A popular Iranian prayer app was used by Israel to send notifications to millions inciting regime defections: "Only this way can you save your life for Iran", one of the delivered messages read. 

 

According to analysts in cyber security  Iran's more intensely threatening groups methodically search for vulnerabilities such as entry points to position themselves to target networks. Seedworm, a group the U.S. and U.K. state has links to Iranian intelligence has been identified through attempts to enter U.S. networks since early February, revealed cybersecurity firm Symantec. Resulting in the group being extracted out of a U.S. bank, an airport and software company supplying the defence industry.

 

Iranian cyberhacking is focused on breaking through Israel's hardened cyber defences by launching thousands of wiper attacks on Israeli companies, with success in hitting 50 of them. Security cameras hacked across Israel and the Gulf aided Iran to target drone and missile strikes, pointed out Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point Software. Gill Messing at Check Point added Iranian hackers demonstrated a 'new level' of "scale, effect and sophistication" co-ordinating strikes with the mass text messages sent to Israeli citizens. 

 

There is also speculation that Tehran, in throttling its internet for the purpose of domestic censorship, might have inadvertently set back its own hackers' advances in cyber offences. Although there is  some fear that Iranian hackers may have infiltrated undetected into sensitive economic or military targets, biding time to suck up data. "They could have longterm access that they are not ready to burn", suggested Andy Piazza at cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks. 

 

Since war began, Iranian hackers have been at work throughout the Persian Gulf region – and far beyond. Still from YouTube video

 

 

 

"We Will See Where Things Lead..."

"The problem with the strait is this. Let's say we do a great job. We say we got 99 percent. One percent is unacceptable, because one percent is a missile going into the hull of a ship that cost $1 billion."

"If we do a 99 percent decimation, that's no good."

"I read a story today that I'm desperate to make a deal. I'm not. I'm the opposite of desperate. I don't care. ... In fact, we have other targets we want to hit before we leave. "

"I don't like to say this, we've won this. This war has been won. They have no navy and they have no air force, and they have nothing."

"And we literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country They can't do a thing about it."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Photo: Lee Hathaway

"Iran wants to fight this war of attrition."

"Once the war got underway, they had two objectives. One was to survive, but the second was to outlast Trump."

"Make the U.S. feel so much pain through the economy, strikes on the energy infrastructure, that they don't do it again."

"What they're trying to ensure is that Israel doesn't go in and do a war like they do in Lebanon every six months."

Nate Swanson, former U.S. diplomat 

 

"Mr. President, you are acting now to ensure future generations do not have to live under the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran."

"Unlike Iraq, this isn't a tie. This is not parity. This is is not chaos. This is success."

"Pure American success on plan."
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth 

 

"The American position was essentially Iranian surrender, and the Iranian response was essentially American surrender."

"The American position was, 'Get rid of  your nuclear program, missiles and proxies', and the Iranian position was, 'Compensate us for our losses, and get out of the Middle East'."

Ilan Goldenberg, Middle East policy adviser for the Biden administration 

War in Iran  Center for Strategic and International Studies

 

Four weeks after the start of the February 28 aerial bombardment by U.S. and Israeli warplanes over Iran, those left in positions of power to represent the Islamic regime are no closer to surrendering to American demands than they were prior to the conflict. This, despite that their elite leaders both at the governing level and from the Islamic Republican Guard Corps have been dispatched to hold counsel with the Hidden Mahdi in Paradise, and a succession of lesser authority figures stepping in to take their place, in a roundtable of continuing precision strikes picks off each substitute.

 

The situation appears now to be in the defiant hands of the IRGC and even there it is questionable who has assumed the position of elite enforcer. On the American side, the war has proven to be extremely unpopular among American citizens. The U.S. legacy press is not in support of ongoing hostilities, the European Union is tying itself into knots trying to avoid Mr. Trump's accusations of elusive allies in a pinch, and China and Russia are ever ready at the UN to vote down any sanctions against their ally, Iran.

 

The signature closure of the Strait of Hormuz has struck the world economy and the stock market, an uncomfortable position for the Trump administration to find itself glued to. The threat and danger to global shipping targeted by Iran and the IRGC has thrown the shipment of oil, gas and fertilizer off kilter. The U.S. is self-sufficient in energy resources; it is Europe whose sourcing of energy revolves hugely around Iran that will suffer; still none among them is prepared to enlist in the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.

 

The Gulf States, most geographically vulnerable to a desperate Iran with too many missiles and drones at its disposal, and receiving the blunt end of Iranian revenge-spite, speak of defence, but mostly hang their expectations on the U.S.-Israeli duo to rid the Middle East of the simmering threat of the Islamic Republic's nuclear threat and its terrorist proxies. They are anxious to see the job done and over with and the threat they've been living under since 1979 dispensed with.

 

Pressing help from the European and Asian nations to secure the Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with as much success as did the U.S. President. All are eager to do their part with one proviso: the conflict must first come to an end. In five national surveys in a week it was revealed that Americans oppose the war and fail to approve of its handling by their president. This, though Americans support efforts to stop Iran from nuclear weapons.  

"We will see where things lead, and if we can convince Iran that this is the inflection point, with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction -- we have strong signs that this is a possibility -- and if a deal  happens, it will be great for the country of Iran, for the entire region and the world at large."

Steve Witkoff, U.S. peace envoy  

Photo: Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

 

Canada, a Haven for Genocidal Islamists of the Islamic Republic of Iran

"For 25 years, there has been a standing incitement to genocide, a stand-alone breach of the Genocide Convention."

"The ongoing missile attacks over the years means Israel is entitled to exercise its right of self-defence because of the standing and imminent threat of genocide."

"[The United Nations has provided] protective cover [for Iran rather than holding it to account for[ genocidal antisemitism."

"The problem has been that those who should have been protecting the rules-based order -- including the U.S. -- have, regrettably, abandoned transnational alliances and upended the rules-based international order."

"But that doesn't mean we have to acquiesce to Iran and its murderous proxies."

Irwin Cotler, former Canadian justice minister, human rights activist

A handout picture provided by the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office shows him greeting the crowd before addressing the nation on May 20, 2025 in Tehran.  Photo by -/KHAMENEI.IR/AFP via Getty Images

 

This is a man who was once part of the Government of Canada, and at that time a Liberal cabinet minister, decades ago. He has since fully immersed himself in human rights affairs, as a seasoned lawyer and dedicated human rights defender. Iran is just one egregious purveyor of human rights offences that Mr. Cotler has engaged with. But it is also the only source of an active lethal threat against him, that many might recognize as a fatwa. In 2024, Mr. Cotler was advised that Canadian intelligence services was aware of an active plot to assassination him, from Iran. To this day he remains under police protection.

 

Canada cut off diplomatic relations with Iran under the Conservative-led government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper. When Justin Trudeau became prime minister under the banner of a Liberal government he mused about the need to renew diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Much to the consternation of the large Iranian-Canadian population which had arrived in Canada following the 1979 Islamic Revolution to escape the excesses of the new fundamentalist Islamist government.

 

Despite the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Iranian-Canadian citizens have noted with dismay and fear the increasing presence of Iranian officials linked to the regime, as well as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, residing in Canada, walking its streets, establishing their families in Canada as a safe haven. Among them is the family of the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani. In the chaos of the joint Israeli-U.S. aerial attacks against the Iranian regime to destroy its nuclear facilities and ballistic missile launch sites, agents of the regime live in Canada.

 

Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), holds a press conference in Tehran, Iran. /Courtesy of Yonhap News

 

Many of them are in Canada illegally. Some among them are elite members or family members of the IRGC and the government. Many who are identified are meant to be deported, a process that has succeeded so far in deporting one single individual. In the past few years, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had elevated Ali Larijani to a powerful authority post that even the current president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian must report to. Before his death Khamenei tasked Larijani to take any and all measures to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic. During the mass protests of January that roiled the country, Larijani oversaw the brutal lethal response that left thousands dead.

 

The Larijani family was second in influence and power only to the late Ali Khamenei. As a surviving member of the Iranian ruling elite, Larijani has control second to none now. While a governing council was struck to decide a successor to Ayatollah Khamenei, not much is done without Ali Larijani's approval and guidance. One of five Larijani brothers, serving top posts in the hierarchy of Iran's Islamic Republic he is now the power behind the throne of Shiite domination in the majority Sunni Middle East.

 

Two of his brothers are very familiar with Canada, having spent considerable time there, alongside their families. "The Larijani family is at the head of the Iranian state", a 2016 CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) analysis stated. Fazel Larijani was a cultural affairs attache at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa prior to diplomatic ties being severed in 2012. According to Iranian-Canadian anti-regime activists, Fazel's family continues to live in Canada. 

Iran's wartime power structure

 

The London-based Iran International outlet wrote of Bagher Ardeshir Larijani being granted permanent residency in Canada in 2016, which was rescinded ultimately on the basis of his having failed to live in Canada for a minimum of 730 days over a five-year period. Bagher's son, however, the report stated, "is now a Canadian citizen". There is much irony here in that Canada's large expatriate Iranian community organized immense demonstrations in celebration of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's death in an Israeli strike on his compound in Tehran.

 

The Iranian diaspora in Canada, one of the largest in the world, has warned for years that regime officials were present in their community, making use of Canada as a vacation destination, or alternately a safe haven where they could deposit their families. Morteza Talaei, a former police chief in Tehran who had been involved in the violent repressive response to Iran's 2003 demonstrations, had been reported by outraged Canadian Iranians having been seen working out at a Toronto gym. 

 

"Larijani is responsible for co-ordinating the response to the (January country-wide) protests on behalf of the Supreme Leader of Iran and has publicly called for Iranian security forces to use force to repress peaceful protesters" a report by the U.S. Department of the Treasury stated, leading to his being sanctioned on January 15. At a time when Larijani's nieces and nephews as well as  his own children lived and worked in the United States.

 

Despite barring entry of senior Iranian officials into Canada since 2022, Canada has been inexcusably tardy in removing Iranian officials from Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency, while tracking down 20 Iranian officials deemed ineligible to remain in Canada, managed to remove only one of those identified.  

"Based on their actions, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the IRGC has knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in or facilitated a terrorist activity, or has knowingly acted on behalf of, at the direction of, or in association with an entity that has knowingly carried out terrorist activity. Listing the IRGC means that they are a terrorist group."

"The decision to list the IRGC through the Criminal Code listing regime sends a strong message that Canada will use all tools at its disposal to combat the terrorist activity of the IRGC, conducted both unilaterally and in knowing association with listed terrorist entities such as Hizballah and Hamas."

"As a now-listed entity, the IRGC meets the definition of a “terrorist group” under Canada’s Criminal Code. As an immediate consequence of this listing, Canadian financial institutions, such as banks and brokerages, are required to immediately freeze the property of a listed entity. It is a criminal offence for anyone in Canada and Canadians abroad to knowingly deal with property owned or controlled by a terrorist group."

"Listing can also assist Canadian security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism, including by helping to facilitate the laying of terrorism charges against perpetrators and supporters of terrorism. The terrorist listings mechanism plays a key role in countering terrorist financing. A listing can also help block sympathizers in Canada from providing assistance to terrorist groups."

Public Safety Canada, June 19, 2024 

 

Recognizing Iran for Its Terrorist Credentials

"We need to name and shame the perpetrators."

"It stands out that the architect of all of this repression, Ayatollah Khamenei, is not on Canada's sanctions list."

Brandon Silver, director, policy and projects, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights 

 

"It is very frustrating for Iranians to be walking the streets [of Canada] and [to] see our oppressors alongside with us and having no real tools to put them behind bars, even though we've reported many of them."

"We see them at our local gyms, we see their sons and daughters spending millions of dollars in expensive  houses, cars, living lavish life-styles, while our people back home can't afford even a loaf of bread."

Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay

 

"This is a moment, perhaps as significant as the Berlin Wall falling itself."

"Can you imagine for a moment what a world of peace might look like if we listen to the call of the Iranian people, of whom tens of thousands have now been brutally massacred?"

Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar 

Protesters burn pictures of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as they march in support of regime change in Iran during a protest in Toronto, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Photo by Sammy Kogan /THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

In 2012, the-then Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper took the step of responding to the Islamic Republic of Iran's interference in Canadian affairs, its operatives' presence in Canada and the harassment of Iranian-Canadians, by closing the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa and obliging Iranian diplomats to leave. Some Iranian government assets were frozen. And Iran took steps to counter the situation by expelling Canada's diplomatic staff and closing the Canadian mission in Tehran.

 

When Justin Trudeau took over the helm of Canada's government in 2015 he mused for a while about restoring diplomatic relations with Iran. It became impossible to overlook the Iranian government's support of terrorism, the implications of its interference in Canada, including money laundering, so the diplomatic fissure remained. Eventually Canada outlawed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, placing them alongside Hezbollah and Hamas, its proxies, on Canada's terror list.

 

That occurred in the wake of the 2020 targeting of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 where 55 Canadian citizens were killed as the plane exploded in mid-air. The IRGC shot missiles at the airliner as it left the Iranian capital during a period of high tension, but Tehran denied the event until it no longer could, given the damning evidence. The al Quds branch of the IRGC has been involved in terrorist plots abroad targeting enemies of the regime, most notably from among the Jewish and Israeli eeecommunity.

 

Demonstrators in Iran (MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The regime is known to have tasked Canadian expatriate Iranians to launch assassinations in the United States. Similarly assassination plots meant to take place in Canada were foiled by the RCMP; former federal Solicitor General Irwin Cotler was one of those on the Iranian assassination list, as a high-profile human rights campaigner. After the October 7 Iran-inspired-and-enabled Hamas atrocity in southern Israel, pro-Hamas protests on Canadian university campuses were promoted by Iran.

 

Iranian government agents as well as those belonging to the IRGC have notoriously moved about freely in Canada, both for personal relaxation in a country where their presence is not opposed by the government, and to pursue the Iranian objective of money laundering through Canadian real estate. Some 20 senior members of the regime have bypassed Canada's immigration system while others are under active investigation.  

 

Having done so, the government took no action on removing IRGC operatives from Canadian soil. Now, members of Parliament and human rights activists have joined in a move to press Canada's Liberal government to place pressure on Iran; the official sanctioning of its supreme leader and and focusing on an increased criminal investigation into regime perpetrators, would represent a good start for a government that has scarcely moved itself to mobilize condemnation against the regime that has been using military means to stifle a popular uprising demanding the end of the Iranian Republic dominating their lives.

 

Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar, Liberal MP Miville-Dechene and Iranian Canadian human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay joined other morally-principled activists in calling on Canada to make overtures to allies to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the terrorist entity it is. An energetic commitment to advance investigation  into human rights violations perpetrators and crimes committed in Iran in response to mass protests that struck against the regime across the country is called for.

 

Brandon Silver of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre urged that such an "structural investigation" is required, to have the RCMP launch a thorough investigation for the purpose of assembling evidence implicating Canadian residents who have been involved in war crimes and atrocities. "We must go beyond issuing statements, we must act. This means supporting independent international investigations and treating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization in practice, not just in name", stated Afshin-Jam MacKay.

 

A timely call to action in the wake of thousands of Iranians killed by the Iranian regime's crackdown against widespread anti-government protests in January. While the European Union foreign ministers agreed to list the IRGC as a terrorist group last week, the United Kingdom has made no such commitment. 210 Iranian individuals and 254 Iranian entities have been sanctioned by Canada under the criminal code. Yet only one such IRGC designation has resulted in deportation. 

 

The IRGC is a major military, political and economic force in Iran   EPA

 

The Battle for Freedom in Iran

Video footage from early January showed security forces storming a hospital in Ilam where activists said wounded protesters were being treated  Vahid Online 

 

"This regime is dying. Essentially, it's fighting, it's killing again, but it is also dying..."

"This regime has lost legitimacy The problem is it hasn't lost the capability to kill."

Former CIA  director David Petraeus 

 

"Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who has emerged as a unifying figure for the democratic movement, has called for continued resistance through nightly chants and nationwide strikes."

"'The blood of the best and bravest children of our homeland does not allow us to remain silent or retreat', he wrote." 

"According to the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, regime elites are moving billions of dollars out of the country in anticipation of its collapse."

"They are preparing their escape routes -- many of which lead to Western nations, including Canada."

Avideh Motmaen-Far, president, Council of Iranian Canadians 

Videos circulated via social media on Jan. 13 and verified by NBC News showed more than 200 bodies in bags outside Iran's largest cemetery in Tehran.  via X

 

Morgues overflow in Tehran, where families wander disconsolately through rows of bodies enclosed in black bags, searching for their loved ones. In the state-imposed digital shut-off only videos smuggled out through Starlink connects Iranians to the outside world. Yet, the world looks in at Iran as it undergoes the most contagious, forceful denial by its citizens of the dark world of the Islamist Republic they are forced to live within. 

 

The latest uprising, initiated on December 28 and responded to by the regime's military and policing bodies, the IRGC, Basij and regional Police by escalating force that more latterly turned into a military bloodbath targeting peaceful protesters, has drawn the attention of the United States of America, where President Donald Trump, in alarm over reports of thousands of people killed and mass hanging of those arrested has warned the Iranian government it will intervene if the killings persist.

 

The eyewitness reports of military-grade weapons deployed against civilians describe a scene of unbridled horror. Security forces blocked access routes preventing fire engines from reaching an area where protesters set fire to a mosque in an attempt to free detained friends; a deliberate move by the regime's enforcers to ensure that all in the mosque would be incinerated. Unhindered, the blaze spread and destroyed 300 shops in the historic bazaar.

 

A woman passes a damaged mosque in Tehran on Jan. 21.   NBC News

 

Over 1,000 people were reported killed in a three-night period in a northwest city, reported by a  witness, where some medical centre floors were steeped in blood. In another center, security forces fired directly at protesters, shot those wounded, while blocking others from reaching hospitals. In Tehran, prayer leader Ahmad Khatami called for the execution of all protesters that have been detained, speaking of them as "servants of Netanyahu" and "soldiers of Trump". 

 

Without the active intervention of outside help it remains unlikely that the protesters who detest the Iranian regime would be capable on their own, despite their numbers and the passion of their rejection, to effect a regime downfall. Even if the Police forces in sympathy with the people, decided to cast their lot in with them in support of regime change, since they are not as ideologically driven as the IRGC and Basij, it is unlikely they could succeed.

 

With that reality uppermost in mind, Prince Reza Pahlavi has called for "surgical strikes" against the infrastructure of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps; the instruments of the IRGC oppression of the Iranian people. Any action that targets IRGC capacities to support operations targeting command and control structures of the IRGC could succeed in damaging the regime to the extent of abolishing it altogether.  

"I put one of the wounded in the boot of my car to take him to hospital, as I was worried that we would get in trouble if we were stopped by the police."

"For almost 96 hours straight - 'without interruption, without sleep, without even closing our eyes for a moment -' we were operating. We were crying and operating. Nobody complained."

"All our clothes and hospital gowns were covered in blood -' our outer clothes, our underwear, everything was soaked in the blood of these young people."

"[We operated on one man who had been shot in the leg and face at a protest.] A bullet had entered through his chin, ripped through his mouth and exited through his upper jaw."

Nima, Tehran surgeon   

An anti-U.S. billboard in Enghelab Square in central Tehran on Jan. 25.  NBC News

 

Outlawing the IRGC as Terrorists in Canada -- So Peremptorily?

"We will do everything we can to stand against the Iranian regime."

"Enough of the brutality. Enough of the repression. Enough of the violation of fundamental human rights."

"I will stand with you. I will march with you. I will hold hands with you."

PM Justin Trudeau, addressing Iranian Canadians

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a remembrance ceremony for Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 in Richmond Hill, Ont., on Jan. 8, 2024. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

This is the man who as leader of the Liberal Party -- while the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper took steps to neutralize the Islamic Republic of Iran's activities in Canada with the full understanding of its sinister Islamist agenda disrupting and interfering in Canadian matters, exerting influence over Iranian-Canadian affairs, tasking members of the IRGC to have a presence in Canada, interpreted by Iranian-Canadians as menacing to their rejection of the theocratic regime's agenda -- stated his intention to restore relations with Iran.

 

PM Harper invited Iranian diplomats to leave Canada. He ordered the Canadian embassy in Tehran shuttered, and all diplomatic activity to cease. He had Iranian assets seized, and made it clear that no representative of Iran had any business in Canada. Before Justin Trudeau became prime minister he stated his intention to reinstate relations with Iran as one of his more immediate goals. On taking government, the Trudeau regime lost no time overturning as many of the Conservative government's acts of governance as possible.

 

Negotiations to restore diplomatic relations with Iran failed to materialize, but not because Trudeau changed his mind, despite the regime's open and publicly-ventilated threats against Israel, despite its troubling manoeuvres as an unstable, threatening Middle Eastern country, despite its support for terrorism and its sponsorship, training and arming of Lebanon's Hezbollah acting as its proxy in committing international acts of terrorism against Jewish targets. An entire litany of reasons to sanction.

 

Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, seen here in an undated self-portrait, died in an Iranian jail in 2003

 

Trudeau's far more worthy predecessor, Stephen Harper, interpreting the death in Iran's notorious Evin Prison of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, accused of espionage itself ample reason to shun and deplore the Islamist regime, as well as its former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing the United Nations General Assembly in 2005, promising that Israel would be 'wiped off the map', along with the IRGC, in charge of Iran's nuclear and missile program, progressing in its advance of its uranium enrichment plans for its nuclear program.

When the IRGC four years ago shot two missiles at Ukraine International Airlines PS752 as it was departing Tehran for Ukraine en route to Canada, killing all 176 passengers and crew aboard, in the incredible belief that the passenger jet was an incoming U.S. ballistic missile, the resulting death of 50 Canadian-Iranians, another 30 permanent residents and more young Iranians studying at Canadian universities, along with nationals from other countries, the outrage on its very own should have been ample cause for Trudeau to recognize the IRGC as a terrorist group.

Parliamentarians representing all parties unanimously called for the government to place the IRGC on Canada's terrorist list six years ago -- and another motion passed much more recently in the House of Commons, to which the Liberal government assented, yet it made no move, despite the more than ample evidence that the Iranian Republic under its theistic regime was itself a terrorist entity, despite the desperate pleas by the Canadian-Iranians who were being tormented and threatened by the presence of IRGC agents in Canada -- yet Trudeau's government made no move to officially ban them in Canada.

Death threats issued against dissenting Iranian Canadians by IRGC agents moving about freely in Canada, the knowledge that money-laundering in the hundreds of millions to benefit Iran was occurring in a giant operation conducted in Canada, that Iranian spies had flooded the country and the Liberal government just stood by was irrational, puzzling and negligent to Canada's and its citizens best interests. When Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd was murdered by Iran's morality police for wearing her hijab too casually, Iran arrested thousands of protesters, and an estimated 550 were killed by the IRGC and the Basij militia.

Finally, after all that has happened, all that is yet to occur, orchestrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Trudeau government has seen fit to outlaw and list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Now, the work of closing down the networks that launder $100 billion illegally for Iran in Canada must be shut down. Now, the malevolent presence of IRGC operatives in Canada must be rounded up and removed from a country they have no business intruding on. Now, the diplomatic assets of Iran in Canada should be fully dissolved.

During question period, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pressed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on why the federal government didn't move sooner on listing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity.  CBC

 

"One can equate it [Islamic Republican Guard Corps] to a large, corrupt mafia group comprising 150,000 members involved in money laundering, transnational terror, selling drugs on the black market, expropriation of property, extrajudicial killings, targeted assassinations, cyberwarfare and the spread of Islamist propaganda."

"Any time you have seen video footage of women in Iran being beaten and dragged screaming into police vans because of not properly wearing a hijab or of Christians arrested for worshipping in underground churches or Kurds being gassed or children being executed or peaceful protesters being intentionally shot at, blinded, raped or tortured, these are all the acts of the IRGC and its paramilitary subgroup, the Basij."

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Iranian-Canadian human rights activist

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps    Getty Images

 

 

Proscribing Elite Members of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps Entry to Canada

"By officially designating the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, Canada can join the United States in once again contributing to the global fight against terrorism, demonstrating a strong commitment to ensuring peace and stability."

"In both words and deeds, the IRGC as an entity is ideologically committed to destroying Israel and undermining U.S.-Canadian security interests in the Middle East and around the world."

"The October 7, 2023 terrorist massacre by Hamas killed Israeli, American and Canadian citizens, and it was made possible by Iran and the IRGC, which have supported Canadian-designated Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas with arms, training and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for years."

U.S. Republican and Democratic Congressional Representatives 

"Canada is well known for not being able to actually implement the sanctions that it announces. Our allies know this and it annoys them, and the bad guys know this and it makes them smile."

"You're talking about hundreds of thousands of IRGC veterans. You are talking about a lot of conscripts among those IRGC vets, some of whom would have been cooks in 1996 or something like that."

Thomas Juneau, associate professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa

"When drafting our terrorism laws we made a choice that we would not deal with the conduct of militaries or parties to a conflict under the criminal law, but would instead look to international law to sanction or punish unlawful conduct."

Leah West, assistant professor, national security law, Carleton University

Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attend a military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, October 19, 2022. The European Union is considering whether to join United States and officially designate the militia group as a terrorist organization. So far, Canada has refused. (IRGC/WANA/Reuters)

 

Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau was directly asked by fourteen American Congressmen through a group-signatured letter to officially designate the Islamic Republic Guard Corps of Iran as a terrorist group. Canadian parliamentarians beat them to it by a long shot, having much earlier demanded that their government commit to such a move, only to be ignored by the Trudeau Liberals. 

The House of Commons was joined by the Senate in passing resolutions in recent years, both calling for the IRGC to receive terrorist designation. The United States, Sweden, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia list the group as a terrorist entity. On Canada's list of terrorists, 73 in number, the IRGC remains absent, although its al-Quds arm is on the list.

Not to be forgotten is the tragic loss of Iranian-Canadian lives when a member of the IRGC shot down a Ukraine Airlines passenger jet, Flight 752 over Tehran just as it left the airport, on a flight from Tehran to Kyiv, en route to Canada, believing it to be an incoming U.S. missile although a missile would have been coming from a direction opposite to the flight path. Iran denied for days that two missiles destroyed the plane and all the lives within it, passengers and crew.

 

Protesters in Toronto organized by the Association of Families of Flight PS752 join others across Canada in solidarity with Iranians' continued protests against the regime. (Tyler Cheese/CBC)

As an arm of the Iranian military the IRGC is a major supporter of terrorist groups including Hezbollah, the Houthis, Shia terrorist militias, and Hamas. As a state sponsor of terrorism Iran is directly responsible for the Hamas attack on October 7 slaughtering over 1,200 Israelis in southern Israel, taking 240 hostage, along with foreign farm workers. The members of Congress emphasized in their letter that the IRGC facilitated the attack and needed to be stopped.

Canada's terrorist list dates from 2003. Any group on the list makes it illegal in Canada for anyone to do business with the named group or to join or participate in its actions. Which hasn't stopped 'pro-Palestinian' mobs from hoisting Hamas flags alongside Palestinian flags and signalling their support for the Hamas death-cult's heinous sadistic savagery in raping Israeli girls and women, mutilating and murdering them, along with men, the elderly and Israeli children and infants. Touting the atrocities as being in a 'just cause' of 'freedom from the occupation'.

According to an associate professor at University of Toronto, Thomas Juneau, it would merely become a  symbolic gesture to add the IRGC, achieving little in the way of consequences. Yet there are times when even symbolic gestures have their place when civilized societies have an obligation to some kind of action, even symbolically, that they unequivocally abhor and denounce such unspeakable atrocities.  It would even obligate the Canadian government to take the steps required to deny entrance to members of the IRGC into Canada.

Iranian-Canadians have complained for years to the federal government that elite members of the IRGC seem to feel free to own property in Canada, and to visit their families who live in Canada with no government authority denying them that privilege. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made some conciliatory overtures to the demands of Iranian Canadians that members of the IRGC should be forbidden entry to Canada, yet a year later, nothing has been done.

On top of adding more Iranian officials and entities to its sanctions list, the federal government is pursuing measures that would block members of the Iranian regime from entering Canada and potentially kick their family members out of the county. CBCNews

 

Seeking Justice and Closure for Canadian-Iranians

People hold signs with images of the victims of the downed Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, which was shot down near Tehran by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as family and friends gather to take part in a march to mark the first anniversary, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Jan. 8, 2021. Canada and other nations whose citizens died in Iran's downing of a Ukrainian jetliner on Jan. 8, 2020, called on Tehran to come clean about the tragedy and "deliver justice" for the victims' families. - COLE BURSTON/AFP via Getty Images

"I think Canada should take steps. We make a mistake if we fall into this trap of thinking we must exercise a sort of self-censorship."

"We need to take a principled stand. Canadians have been essentially murdered by this regime [Iranian Islamist theocracy]."

Aurel Brain, professor of international relations, Middle East expert, University of Toronto

"We don't expect justice from the Iranian regime. But we expect the government of Canada to protect its own citizens and to be much more effective."

"Now the ball is with the Liberal government."

Ali Gorji, Iranian-Canadian

"This verdict has no basis and does not consist of any objective reasoning or documentation."

"This behaviour of the Canadian judge, by following orders and political cliches, is shameful for a country which claims to follow the rule of law."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh

"We have to hold Iran accountable for its actions. Being passive in the face of these threats only further emboldens the Iranian regime", Michael Chong foreign-affairs critic for the federal Conservatives pointed out reasonably, of the newly-released Ontario court's ruling that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the deliberate shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner -- where half of the passengers were Canadians and others were travelling to Canada on visas or to resume their academic studies -- as an act of pure terrorism.

The court's decision, points out Member of Parliament Chong, validates the Parliamentary opposition Conservative Party's long-standing position calling on the government to list the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. Representing a quarter of a million military personnel, part of the Iranian military, that is highly politicized and well known for its al Quds branch focus on fostering terrorist groups in service to the terrorist ideology of the Republic.

While the Quds branch is a listed terrorist group in Canada, the position is that the entire IRGC should be included. the Canadian House of Commons passed a 2018 motion calling for the entire corps to be listed, but the Liberal-led government has seen fit to just sit on the motion. This government has been more interested in re-establishing diplomatic relations with Iran that were severed by the previous Canadian government that had no problem identifying Iran for what it is; a terrorist-sponsoring nation.

Justice Edward Belobaba of Ontario's Superior Court ruled in mid-May that Iran had deliberately targeted and shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752, an act that makes the Iranian theocracy liable under the provisions of the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. There were high tensions in play on January 8, 2020 between Iran and the U.S. when the plane was shot down. Iran claims the passenger jet was mistaken for an incoming American missile headed for Tehran.

 

The problem with that neat little explanation is that the plane on lift-off was heading OUT of Tehran, not entering it. One missile is a dreadful error; two missiles, a deliberate attack. None of which answers the question that if Iran was so nervous about its tensions with the U.S. anticipating missiles entering its airspace, why would it allow commercial flights to continue? There were a number of flights earlier in the day, none of them experiencing problems. This flight was different.

 

 A forensic investigation team was tasked to probe the event, its report in its final stages to be shortly made public. "Canada remains deeply concerned about the lack of convincing information and evidence provided by Iran.We will not rest until the families [whose loved ones lost their lives in the plane shoot-down] get the justice and accountability they deserve", stated John Babcock, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs Canada.

The decision the Ontario Supreme Court arrived at is in relation to a lawsuit filed against Iran on behalf of relatives of those who perished on that ill-fated plane, but it has no direct bearing on government affairs, unless government decides to use it in a full-scale government-to-government push for justice and compensation for the families involved, from the Republic of Iran. Of the 176 passengers and crew aboard the plane, 55 were Canadian citizens, 30 permanent residents, and 53 were students studying in Canada.

"The plaintiffs have established that the shooting down of Flight 752 by the defendants was an act of terrorism and constitutes 'terrorist activity'..."
"I find on a balance of probabilities that the missile attacks on Flight 752 were intentional and directly caused the deaths of all onboard."
Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba 

 

"Considering the TOR-M1 advanced military capabilities, two radars and control system, pre-approved flight plans and control of the airspace resting with the IRGC, and the firing of not one, but two missiles, it is not possible for two missiles to be fired by mistake as the IRGC claims."

"There are multiple redundant systems and procedures to prevent accidental shooting of civilian aircraft."

Dr. Bahman Jeldi, Iranian analyst, Canadian Center for Persian Studies  

 

"It is my hope that this decision does not prevent Canada's government from pursuing this case in international fora like the International Court of Justice.

"And I hope such a court wouldn't view this case as a replacement for an international judgment that finds Iran responsible for the killing of 176 innocent people."

Kaveh Shahrooz, lawyer, human rights activist

On Jan. 8, 2020, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in the skies over Tehran with two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 176 people aboard, including 138 with ties to Canada. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press)