Thecommander ofIrans Basij paramilitary force has accused theU.S.Embassy in Baghdad of being the Islamic State command center,saying the United States wantsto bring IS to Irans borders in order to pressureTehran.BrigadierGeneralMohammad Reza Naghdis comments, reported byIrans Fars News (close to the IslamicRevolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC), echoed accusations by Irans supreme leader and other Iranian military and political leaders that IS is a creation of the United States and the West.
Naghdi also said that Iraq has its own Iraqi Basij volunteer paramilitary fighters.
Irans Basij paramilitary volunteer force operates under the auspices of the IRGC and has several branches.
The Basij commander claimed that Iranian Basij paramilitary volunteers would like to go to Iraqbut said this was not necessary because Iraqi Basij volunteers were already there and had no need of Iranian help.
Naghdi alluded to Tehrans official position that Iran is not sending ground troops to fight in Syria or Iraq, claiming that while there was no need for an Iranian military presence in Iraq, Iran had provided training.
The Basij commanders remarks are reminiscent of comments he made back in 2012when he said that Syrian militia loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were very similar to Irans Basij volunteer paramilitaries. In that2012 interviewto the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), Naghdi said that the similarity between the Syrian paramilitaries and the Basij had led to accusations that Iran was sending ground troops to Syria.
However, presumably as a show of how loyal and committed Iranian Basij volunteers are to the the cause of resistance against the West, Naghi claimed that millions of Iranian Basij members are prepared to be dispatched to Syria and to Gaza.
By Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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