The state-owned Iran newspaper in a rare-of-a-kind interview with Brig. Gen. Mohammad Tehrani Moghadam, the brother of the late Maj. Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghadam, who died last week in an explosion at the IRGC ballistic missile base under his command, provides details of what happened on that ill-fated day and tells us the story of his brother’s role in building the foundations of Iran’s missile program. Gen. Moghdam, the brother, is the former deputy director of IRGC intelligence agency [a fact that he disclosed during the interview] and is currently the director of IRGC’s ‘Sobh-e Qarib’ cultural foundation. To read the entire text in Farsi, please click here. The following are the excerpts from the interview. [Texts in parenthesis are mine].
1. Gen. Tehrani Moghdam was present at the testing site of a new ballistic missile when it exploded, killing him and 16 other IRGC officers and personnel. The test that was being conducted was the very last in a series of tests of the long-range delivery system. Gen. Moghadam the brother tells Iran newspaper that the “ballistic missile project (which his brother was working on) would soon reach its final phase.” [The claim corroborates a statement by Iran’s military chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Firouzabadi that the explosion that killed Gen. Tehrani Moghadam occurred during a final-stage testing of a weapon system that could strike Israel.]
2. Gen. Tehrani Moghadam was the father of Iran’s missile systems. He adopted and produced the solid-fuel rocket engines for Iranian Scud missiles circa 1987 during the war with Iraq. “The Lebanese Hezbollah loved Haj. Hassan [Gen. Tehrani Moghdam] for the rockets he supplied them. Whenever the Zionists acted wickedly, they (the Hezbollah) would shower them with those rockets.” [This assertion is one of the few official confirmation of Iran providing solid-fuel rockets to the Hezbollah].
3. Because of what the late general did, the Hezbollah would target the heart of Tel Aviv with their missiles if the Zionists undertook [military] action against the Islamic Republic.
4. With innovational approach, Gen. Tehrani Moghadam built the foundation of Iran’s ballistic missile force. Iran is one of the few countries that deploy ballistic missiles. “As our Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] has said in his recent speech, We now will answer threat with threat.”
5. Gen. Tehrani Moghadam lost his life during the development of the country’s ballistic missiles. We can soon reach this historic military achievement of deploying ballistic missiles.
6. The general had other important achievement, but what was discussed above are the extent to which they can be discussed in an open forum.
7. Gen. Moghadam had launched many missile attacks against the monafeghin [MEK - Mujahedeen Khalq] bases [in Iraq]. The MEK had planned his assassination, along with Lt. Gen. Sayad Shirazi. They killed Shirazi, but they could not get to Gen. Tehrani Moghadam. He had also joined his brother (the interviewee) in the fight against the anti-revolution [Sarbedaran Group] in Amol jungles [during the first years of the Islamic revolution]. Years later, Gen. Moghadam the brother served as Ayatollah Khamenei’s personal security detail [a fact disclosed by him during the interview].
8. President Ahmadinejad was one of the strongest supporters of Gen. Tehrani Moghadam’s ballistic missile project. Ahmadinejad had once sent a delegation of governmental space program to visit the installations under the command of Gen. Tehrani Moghadam, which ended in a close relationship between the civilian space program and the IRGC self-reliance [ballistic missile] command. As a result of the collaboration, the IRGC [ballistic missile] unit under the command of Gen. Tehrani Moghadam helped the Space Agency launch satellites into the orbit. [The story corroborates reports at the time of the launch of Omid satellite in February 2009, and Rasad satellite in June 2011, that the missiles used were of highly advanced type, developed and under the control of IRGC].
Source: Iran Newspaper, 19 November 2011
The Fras News Agency reported early Sunday morning local time that Gen. Mohammad Moghadam, the brother, has denied making the statements during the interview with Iran Newspaper. Please note that Iran Newspaper is the official newspaper of the government of the Islamic Republic. The text of its interview with Gen. Moghdam, the brother, was printed on its Saturday 19 November edition, and is still available on its website (as of 2:15 a.m. Tehran time). You can find the link in our post. The brother is himself an IRGC general officer, and as he has disclosed during the interview, he is a former deputy director of IRGC intelligence agency, former personal security detail to Ayatollah Khamenei and currently the director of ‘Sobh-e Qarib’, an IRGC cultural foundation.
ReplyDeletere: #2
ReplyDeleteI have to nit-pick on a small issue. :)
SCUD missiles are liquid-fueled, not solid-fueled. The interview could be talking about either actual SCUD missiles, or any of the solid-fueled artillery rockets developed by Iran.
“As our Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] has said in his recent speech, We now will answer threat with threat.”
ReplyDeleteSince April 2010, I concluded that Iran had gone nuclear (based on the President and Supreme Leader's comments)! It is nice to have a top ranking General back them up!
I said I would never comment on this site again. But I have to thank management for this translation, because I can't read or write Farsi.
Simple Logic: when you can match 'threat for threat' and you are being threaten by nuclear-armed states - you are a nuclear power. When the father of your missile program is killed while working on ICBMs - the only use of which is to deliver a nuke package to foes; well, need I say more? Because this martyrdom occurred just 10 days after Israel tested its nuclear-capable Jericho III (ICBM), it does not take a genius to grasp this tit-for-tat quick response. Had Iran pulled it off without this hitch, it would have gone down in history as the most brazen military feat in a century.
Again, to management, Thxs again. For almost two long years, I have been scouring the internet for proof; this is the most exacting proof there is. My advice to Iranian enemies is simple: BACK OFF you are now dealing with a nuclear-armed state. From now on, any future references to Iran being 1 or 2 years from an A-bomb is not only comical but moot.
2Cold.
Iran may or may not be nuclear armed and maybe no country can threaten it militarily but remember this there are economic and banking sanctions and political isolation and of course the regime has a huge problem which is greater than all other namely the Iranian people who are sick and tired of the regimes dishonesty and inhuman nature.
ReplyDeleteWhether he died through an accident or Western/Israeli terrorism he died a patriot, and an example to all Iranians, and their government. The Islamic Republic has a lot of work to do to ensure the security and prosperity of the people of Iran, and this goes beyond the nuclear issue, or issues connected to Western hostility.
ReplyDelete..."or issues connected to Western hostility."
ReplyDeleteThe hostility that you claim was started by the regime when they stormed the US embassy in Tehran back in 1979 and the regime thrives on the anti American propaganda because without it the regime will cease to exist.
"The Islamic Republic has a lot of work to do to ensure the security and prosperity of the people of Iran"
ReplyDeleteThe Islamic Republic was put in place to achieve one mission only and that was the destruction of Iran and ensure the people to be in a state of perpetual poverty ignorance and hate so that the so called religious class can hang above the Iranian nations head like a chief axeman waiting for his next victim.