|
Trending Topics
|
Iran's Elite Defense Force Finds New Funding Sources
(Wall Street Journal) Benoit Faucon and Sune Engel Rasmussen - Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is maintaining support for armed groups in the Middle East and finding new sources of funding, defying U.S. efforts to curb its activities abroad. New sources of revenue include recently-signed infrastructure contracts in Syria and Iraq as well as expanded smuggling networks. The Guard continues to send bags of cash by plane to the group's Lebanese proxy Hizbullah in Syria, said Hanin Ghaddar, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The wages of Iraqi militias hostile to the U.S. - some trained by the Quds Force - are funded by the Iraqi government, so they aren't affected. Senior Guard commander Gholam Ali Rashid told parliament last month that when Iran fought Iraq in the 1980s, it was on its own. "Now it has allies all over the region," he said.