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Javad Mansuri, a founder and the first commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was nominated in November 1980 as Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of "revolution exportation affairs" whose essence was "to transform every Iranian embassy abroad into an intelligence center and a base for exporting the revolution." P. 6 Since 1973, militant supporters of Khomeini had had access to facilities near the as-Sayda Zaynab camp, not far from Damascus, which was used as the most important forward base in support of the Islamic Revolutionary movement. With Syria's help, by the mid-1970s Lebanon became a cornerstone of the movement that would ultimately overthrow the Shah's government and install Khomeini in Tehran. The training of Iranians in Palestinian camps in Lebanon increased significantly in the mid-1970s...The Iranians acknowledged that 6,000 troops of the Pasdaran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) of Iran, were trained in Lebanon before the revolution. P. 7 The terrorist training establishment in Iran is unique. Its objective is to transform zealots into terrorist machines. The Iranian terrorist experts concluded that only highly professional experts would be able to carry out lethal strikes against choice targets, especially in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe. The primary goal of the training camps became the selection of the most suitable candidate and transforming aspiring terrorists into professional operatives. The Manzarieh camp in northern Tehran was Iran's first major terrorist training camp. The site was selected by Khomeini himself. The lessons accumulated there helped shape the entire Iranian training system. The camp was opened in February 1981 under the command of Sheikh Abbas Golru, who had been a member of the Syrian controlled al-Saiqa, a Palestinian terrorist organization, in 1973-75. P. 10 Meanwhile, in early 1982, the foreign experts were joined by some 300 Farsi-speaking KGB officers operating in Iranian uniforms... During the organization of the training system in the early 1980s, Iran continued to train Muslim terrorists. Thousands of militants underwent "intensive training" in Iran. Those from Middle East countries received three to six months of training in fighting and subversion. By 1985 Hojat-ol-Islam Fazl-Allah Mahalati had 15 - 18 operational terrorist training centers and schools where recruits received commando training and intense indoctrination. Thousands of Muslim Youths from all over the world were centrally processed and then dispatched to training camps all over Iran. There was specialized training for suicide operations... The Manzarieh Park camp in Tehran remained the largest and most diverse school, with some 900 - 1,000 "students" enrolled at any given time. The camp included training facilities for the "suicide unit..." Arab terrorists, mainly from Iraq and their Persian Gulf sheikdoms and emirates, are provided military and paramilitary skills. The trainees for suicide operations are given extensive Islamic indoctrination extolling the merits of death and martyrdom in the name of Khomeini's pan-Islmic revolution... The trainees must be psychologically conditioned before they are exposed to actual terrorist training. P. 12 Sophisticated training installations with foreign experts then prepare the most devoted candidates for suicide operations. The primary center for the development of suicide techniques and the training of operatives was at the Marvdasht camp near Persepolis. Col. Ali Vesseghi of SAVAMA... Who served there until the spring of 1983, reported that the camp was manned by expert trainers from East Germany, Bulgaria, North Korea, and Vietnam. The East Germans and the Bulgarians were responsible for the development of bombs, explosive charges and diversified detonators, as well as for preparing the technicians who would assemble the bombs on-site prior to the sabotage operation. The north Koreans and the Vietnamese turned their trainees "into death volunteers thanks to brain washing." Training techniques were developed in the early 1980s on prisoners condemned to death. According to Col. Vesseghi, the development phase concluded with a test in which one prisoner, who was brainwashed over the course of a month, drove a truck loaded with explosives through a complex course and crashed it head on into a brick wall. P. 13 Hushang Morteza'i, an experienced Iranian pilot, served as a flight instructor for the IRGC until 1983. He described another form of suicide bombings in which pilots crashed Pilatus PC07 aircraft loaded with explosives into major targets and died like martyrs. The training of suicide pilots started in Busher air base in Iran in the early 1980s, with some 90 Pilatus PC-7 aircraft purchased from Switzerland... Tehran decided to send experienced pilots, including Hushang Morteza'i, to the Won San air base in North Korea, where they would "be trained under the supervision of Korean instructors, known for their kamikaze flights" for one year. In the mid-1980s, some of Iran's PC-7 suicide planes were ready for operations, based at the Dowshan Tappeh air base near Tehran. Their targets were the palaces of heads of state of the Gulf states. The pilots of this suicide squadron were graduates of the North Korean training program... By 1983, the IRGC suicide squadrons also included 25 Cessna TurboJets [sic], some Falcon Jets and a few DC-3s. A highly specialized suicide training camp, staffed by Vietnamese and North Korean experts, was located in the Ghayour-Ali base near Ahwaz. Volunteers there are brainwashed and trained to become human bombs in Western cities. P. 14 For the disruption of aerial traffic in the West, from airport attacks to hijacking, Iran maintained two major installations for terrorist training. The first installation was established in Wakilabad near Mashhad. The entire Western-built airport was given over to the terrorist training program. The latest Western airport equipment was purchased and transferred to the training facility. Iran Air maintained a Boeing 707 and a Boeing 727 jet in the airport, and could send a Boeing 747 for special classes. There were several former Iran Air and Iranian Air Force pilots among the staff and students, including some who were trained in the United States. According to a former trainee in Wakilabad, one of the exercises included having an Islamic Jihad detachment seize (or hijack) a transport aircraft. Then, trained air crews from among the terrorists would crash the airliner with its passengers into a selected objective. One of the main objectives of the Iranian terrorist system was to launch daring operations in the West, especially in the United States. P. 15 Many of these submarines were dispatched as student, workers, diplomats, employees of air, shipping, and transport agencies, etc. Nearly all of them are citizens of Muslim nations from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, Muslims from Africa and Muslims from Argentina who are legal residents in their target countries. They are taught to seek citizenship of their new countries, if possible. The installing of submarines in the West was Tehran's ultimate priority. In several West European countries they were disguised as refugees and political asylum seekers. However, available data from defectors suggest that only a very small fraction of the deployed submarines were actually captured. The vast majority made it safely to their destinations where they are still waiting for further instructions to strike. P. 16 They were prepared meticulously to state their claim for political asylum convincingly so they would be in a position to get permanent residence papers, thus freeing them from the surveillance that existed for diplomats and officials. However, it was in Lebanon that the terrorist system sponsored by Iran, popularly known as the HizbAllah or Islamic Jihad, was first consolidated and proven in action against the U.S. The lessons of the success of the HizbAllahterrorist operations in Beirut served as a major lesson for preparing terrorist operations in the primary target countries, most notably the U.S. P. 17 On June 6, 1982, Israeli forces crossed the border into Lebanon and began a campaign that would ultimately destroy the bulk of the PLO-dominated terrorist infrastructure then existing in Lebanon. Iran immediately dispatched some 5,000 Pasdaran to Lebanon via Damascus in order "to assist the inhabitants of Lebanon" in their fight against Israel. P. 18 The Shi'ites and their allies were supplied by an airlift from Iran via Damascus. Because of the large amounts of money and weapons they controlled, the Iranians became the core of a new terrorist system. Iranian funds were used to recruit and sustain some 20% of Haricot AMA's fighters and commanders, as well as Fadlallah's 500 students, who constituted the core of the fledgling HizbAllah. The message of Islamic agitation spread all over Lebanon. P. 19 The continued radicalization of the Lebanese Shi'ite population resulted in the sudden emergence of a myriad of small armed groups, usually gathered around religious and military personalities. Once the base area in the Baalbak was secured, Sheikh Fadlallah used his religious and moral authority, as well as control over the vast supplies of funds and weapons from Iran, to organize 13 Islamic terrorist movements (11 Shi'ite and 2 Sunni) into a confederation called HizbAllah. The Shi'ite terrorist establishment as organized in HizbAllah could not have reached its current position without the leadership of Sheikh Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. P. 21 Like Khomeini, Fadlallah refuses any official title, although his authority is unquestionable. His statements in sermons and religious decrees are in essence political incitements concealed as religious preaching. Fadlallah provides the Islamic legitimization for the HizbAllah terrorist attacks: The weak peoples lack the technology and lethal weapons available to the United States and European countries. Therefore, they must fight with the means available to them. Why is it that what Muslims do in self-defense is seen as terror?! As oppressed peoples, we are entitled to consider all unconventional means to combat these tyrants. We see no terror in what weak Muslims are doing in the world with the primitive, unconventional means at their disposal. This is a legitimate war. P. 22 That night, the two drivers were taken from the Biqaa to the house of Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, who "gave his blessings" and assured them of a place in heaven for their sacrifice. The next morning they woke up an hour before the operation, prayed, had tea with a cookie, kissed the Koran and drove away. The cookies were laced with drugs which were administered by Dr. Aziz al-Abub (whose real name was Ibrahim al-Nahdhir), an Iranian protégé of Abu-Nidal and Fadlallah who had received "special training in the techniques of mind control" from the KGB in the USSR. In the mid-1980s, he emerged as the primary torturer of Western hostages. On October 23, 1983, at 6:17 AM, Martyr Chubtarasha crashed his Yellow Mercedes truck loaded with 300kg of high explosives into the U.S. Marines barracks. P. 31 The HizbAllah traces its roots to the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Sheikh Hussein Mussawi compared Iran's relations with the HizbAllah to those of "a mother to a son. We are her children." P. 35 Events in Lebanon in the early 1980s not only crystallized the radical militant Shi'ite community, but proved that, given the right professional assistance, the "Khomeini International" could affect world politics. P. 37 In mid-1984, Iran established a set of institutions to conduct infiltration operations of the target countries in the Near East and the Muslim communities in Western Europe. The coordination bureau oversaw specialized training for operatives and terrorists in the as-Sayda Zaynab camp near Damascus, in Baalbak in the Biqaa and in Tehran. Two types of HizbAllahi were trained in Tehran:
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