(Washington Times) Rowan Scarborough - Iran has spent up to $100 billion in the past five years financing operations in Syria, according to the new e-book Iran: The Rise of the Revolutionary Guards' Financial Empire, released Wednesday by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the country's largest internal dissident group. The book estimates that Iran has paid nearly $100 million a year in salaries to mercenaries sent to Syria under the direction of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds force. At the same time, the Iranian regime is undertaking the largest arms buildup in its history. The book estimates that Iran has spent $11 billion alone on ICBMs from North Korea. Military spending has gone from $3 billion annually in 2008 to $13 billion in 2015. Tehran spends another $3.4 billion annually on internal security and $1.4 billion annually on the "export of fundamentalism." The book is a warning to the West that investments in Iran will not enliven the private sector but will increase the holdings of the ayatollah and the IRGC. "The book is intended to show that behind the veneer of the official banks and seemingly benign companies lies a web of institutions controlled by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and his ideological terrorist arm, the Revolutionary Guard Corps," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the dissident group's Washington office.
2017-03-09 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive