IRAN: ALLEGED EX-IRGC MEMBER LISTS QUDS FORCE

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 LONDON 004680

SIPDIS

NOFORN
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/20/2017
TAGS: EFIN KTFN PREL MNUC PTER IR UK
SUBJECT: IRAN: ALLEGED EX-IRGC MEMBER LISTS QUDS FORCE
FRONTS IN IRAQ, CLAIMS TO REPRESENT "THOSE INSIDE"

REF: DECEMBER 4 EMBASSY LONDON-NEA/INR E-MAIL

Classified By: Political Counselor Richard Mills, Jr. for reasons 1.4 (
b) and (d)


1. (S/NF) Summary. Mohammed Ali Khatami (please protect),
claiming to have been in the past a long-term operative for
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC),provided London Iran
Watcher (Poloff) detailed written allegations concerning
long-term IRGC-Quds Force involvement in de-stabilizing Iraq.
Khatami's written allegations, the validity of which Embassy
is unable to assess, include dozens of Iraqi NGOs which he
claims serve as false fronts in support of Quds Force
operations, including attacks on Iraqi, U.S. and coalition
forces. Khatami (no relation to former President of Iran
Khatami) makes his claims in a draft article he wrote for a
UK Arabic-language newspaper but which the author's London
intermediary, an established Embassy contact, turned over to
Poloff as too sensitive for publication. The article, which
Poloff forwarded to Department (ref),gives general
information on these NGOs without linking them to any
specific incident or attack.


2. (S/NF) Summary con't. During a face-to-face meeting,
Khatami told Poloff he had worked for much of the 1970s and
80s in Lebanon and Iran as a PLO, Hezbollah and IRGC trainer
for "asymmetric" operations. He disclaimed involvement in
any anti-U.S. terrorism. An Iranian-UK dual citizen now
living in Dubai, Khatami said he met extensively in
Washington before and after the 2003 Iraq invasion with
Americans associated with Ahmed Chalabi and with at least one
working-level USG official who has since left government.
Khatami also said he has recently been asked by
American-citizen Iranian expats associated with Reza Pahlavi
to attend meetings in the UK and other European capitals in
early 2008 to discuss "Iran's political future." Khatami
claimed he would be an "informal representative" of political
figures in Iran; he stated those figures include Rafsanjani,
Qalibaf, Khatami and "others inside Iran" who are opposed to
Ahmedinejad. Due to Khatami's deeply checkered history, his
possible relationship with UK government officials, and his
evident interest in associating the USG with regime change
planning in Iran, Poloff plans no further follow-up or
contact. End summary.

Allegation: Quds Force Ties In Iraq Deep and Wide
-------------- --------------


3. (S/NF) Khatami's article, which Embassy is unable
independently to assess, makes numerous allegations about the
Quds Force's (QF) historical role in the Persian Gulf/Lebanon
region. It consists principally of an awkwardly drafted but,
in places, detailed listing of several dozen QF false fronts,
some having little cover activity beyond their NGO name.
Other named NGOs allegedly perform reconstruction, cultural,
and humanitarian work in various sectors, while also,
according to Khatami, providing training, funding and/or
logistical and personnel support to militia/terrorist groups
and operations. The below examples (paras. 4-6) are samples
only, based not on a full translation, but on an informal
gisting done at post, of Khatami's eight-page Arabic-language
article, which Washington agencies may wish to translate more
fully.

4. (S/NF) Khatami describes in great detail links between
many Iraqi Parliamentarians and what he says are
QF-controlled funding mechanisms. Khatami alleges the
Iranian-spawned NGOs which support Iranians' pilgrimages to
Shia shrines in Iraq in fact are supervised by QF commander
Suleiman and his deputy Ahmad Feruzandeh; he says several
dozen companies in Basra, Amara, Kerbala, Najaf, Al Nasariya,
Diyala, Wasat and elsewhere are run along these lines.
Khatami claims the Mohammed Bakr Al Hakim Foundation funnels
up to USD 15 million per month to Iranian Ambassador Qomi and
various Islamic Republic of Iran "consultants."


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5. (S/NF) Khatami also claims QF personnel are transported
between Iran and Iraq by the Al Kawther, Al Nour, and Dar Al
Koran companies, which he says are controlled by Amar Al
Hakim, son of Abdl Al Haziz Al Hakim; he claims these QF
members travel and work under false identities, as engineers,
doctors, and other skilled personnel. Khatami claims a
similar level of influence and control is exercised by
IRGC/QF personnel in major Iraqi press organs, notably Habib
Al Sadr's "Al Iraqiya." Similarly, numerous QF-manned
security companies, registered with the Iraqi interior
ministry and in legal possession of arms, murder Iraqis with
impunity, according to Khatami; he said one of these, the Al
Wissam Company, is part of Hizbollah. Khatami's article
lists what he claims are the "Quds Force salary numbers" for
several Iraqi officials, including "Minister of State" Abu
Mujtaba AKA Hassan Asari (salary number 70166) and Member of
Parliament and Al Furat television station manager Abdul
Hamid Mu'ualla (QF identity card no. 10002904).


6. (S/NF) An especially notable, and highly detailed,
Khatami allegation is that some Iraqi Red Crescent Society
members gather information in support of terror operations
and, in coordination with the Imam Relief Committee, a large
and well-known IRI foundation, help channel weaponry to
groups in Iraq.

"My Life As An Islamic Revolutionary"
--------------


7. (S/NF) In a discussion in London on December 19, Khatami
recounted to Poloff his complex and exotic life history,
which allegedly includes years of PLO, Hezbollah, IRGC
service; he said he had shared some but not all of this
account with USG officials in Dubai. Born in Kerbala, Iraq
in 1958 into an Iranian clerical family active in its
resistance to the Shah's government and supportive of
Khomeini in the 1960's and 70's, Khatami was raised in
Kerbala and, after 1969, in Qom. His family's anti-Shah
activities took them back to Kerbala in the 1970's where,
Khatami claims, they were intimates of the Hakims; he also
claims Ayatollah Montazeri was an early patron. He claims
blood ties to the Al Sadr family through his mother's family.
Khatami said he remains an Iranian nationalist and "an
Islamic idealist."


8. (S/NF) Khatami claimed he had spent some years before the
Iranian Revolution in PLO-run facilities in Lebanon, being
trained and then training Iranian recruits for "armed
struggle for Islam." His trainees for the most part went
back to Iran where they became early members of the IRGC
during the Revolution, but HE admitted some wound up in MEK
ranks. When the Shah fell, Khatami went to Iran to help
train the IRGC; after Bani-Sadr's fall he "returned to field
work" in Lebanon, where his Arabic helped him work with
Hezbollah. He said he had nothing to do with the attack on
the Marine Barracks or the kidnapping and murder of other US
Embassy Beirut personnel, but said he knew a principal
MOIS/Hezbollah planner of both operations, one Ahmad Muniah.
Khatami said Muniah had also tried to have Khatami killed in
1987, as a political rival associated with the overly liberal
Bani Sadr and, later, Montazeri.

Change of Heart When Targeted for Death
--------------


9. (S/NF) Khatami showed no remorse over his years of armed
militancy, in which he still seemed to take pride. He said
his loyalties to the regime in Tehran were dramatically
affected, however, when IRI intelligence (MOIS) allegedly
targeted him for execution while in Lebanon. He claimed
internal MOIS rivalries made him a target, since he had
backed fallen President Bani-Sadr, vice the radical "akhund"
group through which Khomeini had consolidated his power.
Khatami added that his loyalty to Ayatollah Montazeri also
worked against him after Montazeri split from the Khomeini

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line later in the 1980's. When a second MOIS execution
attempt was foiled by Khatami's life-long protector within
the MOIS, Ahmad Shujaiei (Embassy comment: IRPO Dubai may
have received from Khatami current documentation on Shujaiei.
End comment),Khatami, following a period of imprisonment,
fled Iran permanently in 1989, acquiring political asylum in
the UK later that year. He later naturalized in the UK, and
lived in London through the 1990s, working at miscellaneous
unmemorable jobs.

Embassy plans no further contact
--------------


10. (S/NF) Khatami said he developed an active relationship
with UK intelligence authorities in the early 1990s, but that
he later ended the relationship. (Embassy comment: Since
Khatami's relationship with HMG authorities may still be
active, Poloff plans no further contact with Khatami. End
comment.)

Multiple Identities
--------------


11. (S/NF) Khatami said in Lebanon in the 70s and 80s he had
used the nom de guerre Ahmad Abu. He recalled having used a
Saudi passport at one point, but claimed he was uncertain
under what name. He also showed Poloff his UK passport
(number 093188351),issued under the name of Mohammed Ali,
explaining that the UK document's variation on his name had
been based in turn on an Iraqi passport, issued by an Iraqi
diplomat in Kuwait who had a cultural preference for the
Iraqi formulation Mohammed Ahmed Ali. He said he might be
considered an Iraqi citizen as well as Iranian and British.
Khatami told Poloff he would soon be having his UK name
legally changed to Mohammed Khatami, which he said is his
name in all his Iranian documentation. He said he has a wife
and three children in Dubai and a sister and nephews in Los
Angeles.

Khatami's U.S. Contacts, Then and Now
--------------


12. (S/NF) Khatami said he moved from UK to Dubai before the
2003 invasion of Iraq. He further claimed that, while
working in Dubai as a small importer-exporter using his old
Iraq ties, he had met repeatedly in Washington, beginning
before the Iraqi invasion and until 2004, with well-placed
U.S supporters of military action in Iraq; he said Ahmed
Chalabi had been his link to these Americans. Khatami said
that, before the invasion, he provided his Washington
contacts detailed information on the importance, in his view,
of cultivating Shia leaders in southern Iraq, especially
Hakim and the Sadrists. Khatami told Poloff that after the
invasion he had urged upon his Washington interlocutors the
importance of closing Iraq's borders and of not disbanding
the Iraqi army. Khatami said that, extrapolating from what
he called U.S. failure in Iraq "to have a good knowledge of
the region beforehand," he has been invited to join, and
plans to participate in, meetings in the UK and elsewhere in
Europe of Iranian expatriates from the United States and
elsewhere "to plan for Iran's political future." He said his
role would be to act "as a representative of those inside
(Iran)." He said "those inside" did not include members of
Ahmedinejad's or Khatami's ruling circle, but do include
loyalists of Rafsanjani, Qalibaf, Khatami, "and others."
Poloff noted regime change is definitely not USG policy.
(Embassy comment. Khatami, smiling politely, appeared to
discount the caveat. Another Poloff contact separately
confirmed that such an expats' "congress" is being considered
and that Khatami has been invited by U.S. participants. End
comment.)
Comment: One of the 1979 Revolution's Old Guard
-------------- ---


13. (S/NF) In person Khatami is an experienced and adept

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raconteur who, though a Dubai trader, gives an impression
more of piety, intensity and frankness than of prosperity,
polish, or business success. It was not clear how much, or
which aspects, of his convoluted, but seamless and apparently
sanitized, account of his operational history he also shared
with his previous or current American interlocutors. Though
Khatami may again visit the UK in coming months, Poloff has
no plans for further contact or engagement with him.
Regardless of his murky bio and antecedents, Khatami's
evidently deep knowledge of and contacts within the region
may make his written account of alleged QF activities in Iraq
(the reliability of which Embassy is unable to assess) worth
examining, while he himself may be a useful interlocutor for
some on the details of IRGC history and personalties.

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