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On March 8, 2025, the state-run Dideban Iran published an interview with former IRGC Minister Mohsen Rafiqdoust, where he openly admitted to orchestrating assassinations worldwide
In a shocking admission, Mohsen Rafiqdoust, the former minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and ex-head of the Mostazafan Foundation, openly confessed to his direct role in orchestrating assassinations and terrorist operations worldwide. Speaking in an interview that was published on March 8, Rafiqdoust acknowledged that he personally commanded the killings of opposition figures abroad and coordinated acts of terror on behalf of the Iranian regime.
His remarks, which reinforce years of evidence presented by Iranian opposition groups about the regime’s international terror network, confirm that Tehran systematically deployed hired killers and mercenaries to eliminate dissidents. “The Basque separatists in Spain carried out these assassinations for us. We provided them with money, and they executed the operations,” he admitted, exposing how the regime outsourced political assassinations to terrorist proxies while maintaining plausible deniability.
Rafiqdoust boasted about direct Iranian involvement in the killings of Shapour Bakhtiar, Gholam-Ali Oveissi, Shahriar Shafiq, and Fereydoun Farrokhzad, among others. He also detailed how the regime threatened Western governments to secure the release of its terrorists, describing how he personally blackmailed the French foreign minister into releasing Anis Naccache, the failed assassin of Bakhtiar. “I told them that if he was not freed in two weeks, they should expect an embassy bombing or a plane hijacking. They should not complain when it happens,” Rafiqdoust admitted, laying bare the regime’s history of hostage-taking and terror diplomacy.
The timing and intention of a former #IRGC commander admitting to the Guards' role in the 1979 #American embassy takeover have left observers of #Iran’s developments pondering over a truly complex calamity whose consequences are still effective today.https://t.co/GHHejwBU6x
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 22, 2023
These admissions align with his previous statements about the IRGC’s involvement in the US Embassy hostage crisis in 1979, which the regime has long sought to downplay as a spontaneous student-led act. In an earlier interview on August 16, 2023, Rafiqdoust disclosed that he personally provided logistical support for the embassy seizure and was briefed by high-ranking officials on the plan ahead of time. This revelation obliterates the false narrative that the takeover was independent of the regime’s leadership, proving once again that it was an orchestrated act of aggression to consolidate Khomeini’s rule and lay the groundwork for Iran’s global hostage-taking policy.
In 1991, Mohsen Rafighdoost openly admitted the Iranian regime’s role in attacks against U.S. forces, specifically the 1983 Beirut bombing. He stated: “In the victory of the revolution in Lebanon and many other places in the world, America has felt the sting of our blow. It knows that the explosives combined with ideology, which sent 400 U.S. Marines to hell in one strike, came from Iran. Both the TNT and the ideology originated in Iran. This is very clear to America, which is why it is now helpless in the Persian Gulf.” (Resalat Daily, July 20, 1991).
A Regime That Thrives on Terrorism
Rafiqdoust’s brazen confessions do not stem from regret or repentance—they are a calculated display of intimidation aimed at reminding the world that the Iranian regime has a long history of eliminating opponents and will continue to do so. His remarks serve as a testament to what countless disclosures by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) have already revealed: the Iranian regime is built on systematic terrorism, assassination, and hostage diplomacy.
Decades of investigations, intelligence reports, and exposures by the Iranian Resistance have demonstrated how the regime’s terror apparatus spans the world. Tehran’s deep-rooted strategy of extrajudicial killings, abductions, and bomb plots has been used to silence critics and crush opposition abroad. The clerical regime has repeatedly proven that it is not just a rogue state—it is a criminal enterprise that operates with impunity on an international scale.
THREAD
For more than four decades, the clerical regime in #Iran has consistently blackmailed other nations and considered #extremism as "leverage". 1/9https://t.co/ieaaOkZb6y pic.twitter.com/W9u5BJHXqs
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 6, 2022
A Test for the International Community
The significance of these remarks cannot be overstated. The Iranian regime is no longer hiding its crimes—it is flaunting them. Rafiqdoust’s confessions are not just the ramblings of a retired official; they reflect Tehran’s ongoing policy of state-sponsored terrorism. This is not history—it is an ongoing, systematic campaign of terror, emboldened by decades of international inaction.
Such a brazen posture demands fierce and immediate action. The time for mild condemnations and symbolic sanctions is over. The world must take decisive steps to dismantle the regime’s global terror network, hold its officials accountable, and enact severe punitive measures against its leadership.
Failure to act will only embolden the regime, fuel more assassinations, hostage-takings, and bombings, and send a message that Iran’s ruling theocracy can murder with impunity. It is time for the international community to put an end to the clerical regime’s reign of terror—before its next victim is claimed.