Daesh raises questions on ties with Iran

An armed attack on a military parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahwaz, the capital of Khuzestan province, on September 22 is casting a shadow over events in Iran, in particular, and in the Middle East region, in general.

The attack left 29 people dead and more than 50 others injured.

The attack, which was claimed by a number of opposition organizations both inside and outside Iran, carried a number of messages to Tehran. If it says anything, it says that Iran is no longer exempt from terrorist attacks like it was in the past.

This is apparently about time Iran paid for its involvement in a number of regional files, the thing that puts the security of its neighboring states in extreme danger.

Following the attack, Daesh (also ISIS and ISIL) was mentioned by a number of people as a potential perpetrator. The terrorist organization soon then released a video in which it claimed responsibility for the attack. But this made things even more complex and ambiguous.

Daesh's claim of responsibility for the attack put it at the heart of the security scene in the region yet again. It raised questions about the nature of relations between Daesh and the Iranian intelligence and also the changes that might have happened in these relations.

Iranian role

Daesh fell at the center of the struggle for regional hegemony by regional powers. It is a byproduct of the ongoing war between intelligence agencies in the region, each of which works to achieve the goals of their own countries.

The making of Daesh was probably the most mysterious and complex work of competing regional and international intelligence agencies. The organization was born soon after the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, specifically after the American invasion of the Arab state. It was formed by a number of former Iraqi intelligence officers who sought to use it in the fight against American occupation forces.

With the organization growing in size and membership, regional and international intelligence agencies started to race against each other to have their own protégés inside it. All these intelligence agencies sought to use the organization in serving their own interests and agendas. However, each of these intelligence agencies had common goals, namely destroying the region and tarnishing the image of Sunni Islam.   

Relations between Iran, on one hand, and terrorist organizations, including Daesh, on the other, had great influences on the situation in the Middle East region as a whole. While Daesh publicly announces hostility to Iran and Israel, it had never threatened or harmed Iranian interests in the region. The latest attack on the military parade in Ahwaz was the only exception in the past years. On June 7, 2017, Daesh also staged an attack on an administrative building adjacent to the Iranian parliament building.

The presence of links and common goals between Daesh and Iran is manifest in the previous explanation. Sectarian differences between Daesh and al-Qaeda, on one hand, and the Islamic Republic, on the other, did not prevent the presence of common interests between both parties.

Relations between the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Iran started in the 1990s, when al-Qaeda leaders were based in Sudan. This was a time when relations between Iran and the Sudanese regime were strong. This attests to the possibility of the presence of relations between Iran and Daesh too. By having its own agents inside Daesh, Iran aimed to influence the terrorist organization in a way that helps it target Western interests in Iraq and other Arab states.

Iran also used Daesh's presence in Iraq as a pretext for its military interference in the Arab state. It sent troops to Iraq under the pretext of protecting the country's Shiite citizens. By doing this, Iran also succeeded in fomenting sectarian tensions in Iraq, a goal it shares with Daesh and all other anti-Sunni forces both in the region and outside it.

Western countries benefited from Daesh's presence in tarnishing the image of Sunni Islam. This helped them stop the expansion of Sunni Islam on their own soil. Daesh also helped these Western states get rid of the extremists they had, by sending them to Iraq and Syria for jihad within Daesh's rank.

Iranian interference in Iraq opened the door for the formation of the Popular Mobilization Forces and other paramilitary Shiite groups. Iran also was instrumental in the formation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Bahrain, and Syria. It formed the Shiite Houthi militia in Yemen. These movements are rival militaries that compete with the armies in their countries in order to impose new realities.

Coordination and divergence

Relations between Iran and all terrorist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are deeply influenced by the Ruhollah Khomeini ideology which was strongly affected by the ideas of Sayyed Qotb, the main theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood. Militias linked to Iran in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan borrowed the concept of jihad from these terrorist organizations. This proves relations between Iran and these organizations to be ideological. There are also common interests between both parties.

This was why Iran was keen to present financial support to Daesh and al-Qaeda in Iraq for a long time in the past. Iran used al-Qaeda in the fight against the US in Iraq. It now uses Daesh in destabilizing the Middle East region and harming American and Western interests too. The leaders of both terrorist organizations also benefited from this Iranian support by securing an uninterrupted financial supply.  

Some Daesh fighters who had been arrested in the past years had testified to the presence of Iranian support to their organization. They even said they attended meetings with Iranian intelligence officers for operational coordination.

Simultaneous attacks by the Syrian army and Daesh on other terrorist organizations in Syria testified to the presence of coordination between both parties. When Daesh overran large swaths of Iraq, it stopped only kilometers away from Iraqi capital Baghdad. This was when Nouri al-Maliki was the prime minister of Iraq. But Maliki was an ally of Iran, even as Daesh usually said that Baghdad was the capital of the presumed Islamic caliphate it wanted to establish. Free Syrian Army troops raiding Daesh hideouts found Syrian passports with Iranian entry visas on them among the belongings left behind by Daesh fighters and leaders.  

A fighter of Iraq's Mahdi army says he was taken to a hospital in Iranian capital Tehran to receive treatment when he was injured in battles in Iraq. He said he lost his way inside the hospital one day and went to another level, but was stunned when he found al-Qaeda and Daesh injured fighters being given treatment at the same hospital.

Attacks

Those carrying out the attack on the military parade in Ahwaz said in the video Daesh released after the attack that they had decided to move their operations to Iran. They even vowed to target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in latter attacks. This marks a full departure from the old strategy of the terrorist organization, ones that always excluded Iranian interests from its attacks. Soon after the attack, the Iranian army struck Daesh concentrations in the Syrian city of Abu Kamal.

The attack in Ahwaz might have been carried out by a Daesh cell loyal to another regional or international intelligence agency. There are cells in the terrorist organizations that are operated by the Israeli intelligence Mossad. There are other cells that are operated by Western intelligence agencies. The attack could possibly have been carried out with the aim of further destabilizing Iran. This coincided with a new wave of US sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Possible future interaction

On November 21, Qassem Suleimani, the Commander of Quds Force, a division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, sent a message to the Supreme Guide of the Iranian Revolution Ali Khamenei in which he told him of the success of his force in totally rooting Daesh out of Abu Kamal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared the total eradication of Daesh in a televised address on the same day.

Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Ali Larijani repeatedly highlighted the need for rooting Daesh out from Syria and Iraq. On November 22, 2017, the Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which it declared the end of what it described as the "presumed terrorist Daesh caliphate".

Nonetheless, Daesh will most likely be reformulated by Iran in the future with the aim of serving Iranian objectives in other parts of the region. This comes within the framework of the Islamic Republic's old policy of using terrorist organizations in furthering its own agenda in the region and the world.

Iran had reportedly withdrawn some Daesh leaders with the aim of reorganizing them under a new name. Iran will most likely use the new force in attacking the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq.