From page 223 of The Great Reckoning, published 1993: (read moments before your post; this was just too synchronous for me to ignore)
Qods Force to Spread Islamic Revolution
Our sources indicate that Tehran has set up an agency of subversion known as "Qods Force" ("Qods" means "Jerusalem" in Farsi), which has been assigned the task of underwiting fundamentalist revolution in Islamic societies. The founding commander of the Qods Force is said to be Brig. General Ahmed Vahidi, who reports directly to Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Its intelligence director, Mohammed Jafari, is reported to have an extensive background in Euro-terrorism. Qods Force director of operations, Commander Mosleh, led Revolutionary Guards forces in Lebanon from 1982 to 1984 and is believed to have masterminded the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marines baracks in Beirut.
Iran is clearly an imperial power on the march. And it is most likely now a nuclear power. There is considerable evidence that Tehran has purchased at least three tactical nuclear missiles from Russian-controlled missile sites in Kazakhstan. Iran has also contracted with Cuba to teach its pilots how to fly low-level nuclear bomb runs with its newly acquired and nuclear-capable MiG 29s.
One of Tehran's ambitions has been to expand its borders eastward to encompass Farsi-speaking western and northern Afghanistan. It would also like to turn the remainder of Afghanistan into a fundamentalist republic. The champion of Iran's Afghan ambitions is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fundamentalist leader who passionately hates the West and reveres the Iranian ayatollahs. Gulbuddin is seeking to seize control over Afghanistan from the coalition of fighters who overthrew the old Soviet-installed government. Gulbuddin is a member of the majority Pushtun tribe. His principal opponent, Ahmad Shah Massoud, is from the Tajik regions of northern Afghanistan. {taken out recently}
Given the tribal nature of their support, there is a real possibility that the struggle between the two guerrilla leaders will turn into a Pushtun-Tajik ethnic war, which may partition Afghanistan. Massoud, "The Lion of Panshir," would break much of northern Afghanistan away and merge it with Tajikistan, leaving Gulbuddin in charge of a pro-Iranian fundamentalist regime in the south.
Iran Targets Egypt and Saudi Arabia
Iran is willing to project military power in support of Islamic fundamentalism, It dispatched 10,000 troops to Sudan in 1992, to back the fundamentalist military junta in Khartoum against the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) fighting for independence in the south. Among the Iranian detachment were reportedly 2,000 Qods Forces, whose mission was not to fight the SPLA rebels but to export the Islamic Revolution to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Soon thereafter, Egyptian authorities imposed a state of emergency in Upper Egypt to stem a tide of fundamentalist violence. Communication routes with the Governate of Aryut were closed for a time, and 4,000 Egyptian riot troops were dispatched to the area, in addition to 2,000 regular soldiers. Dozens of Islamic fundamentalists were arrested after violent clashes with local C optic Christians resulted in death, injury, and the destruction of local stores. A large number of automatic weapons were confiscated, and many Egyptians fear
the unrest could spread.
The Iranians hope so. A training center for spreading revolutionary Islam, equivalent to the old Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, has been opened in the Imam Au Garrison, a former palace of the Shah outside Tehran. Agents are being trained from Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and the Central Asian republics, particularly Tadjikistan. The Fourth Division of Qods Force, known as the Ansar Corps and led by Commander Qa'ani, reportedly has been assigned the specific mission of subverting the newly independent republics of former Soviet Central Asia: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kirghizia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. |
