Key observation: Mostafa Mohammad Najjar is a high ranking member of
the Revolutionary Guards and a former Minister for Defence. His transfer to Ministry of Interior
represents a shift in focus from external to internal security and underlines
the Iranian government’s concern with the need to quell further dissent, such
as was witnessed after the presidential elections. The Ministry of Interior is
also the body that oversees elections. It
is therefore one of the key ministries for the new government to control in
order to maintain its power. Najjar’s appointment helps consolidate the Revolutionary
Guard’s grip on the political establishment and intelligence services.
Personal
Information
Mostafa Mohammad
Najjar was born in 1956 in South Tehran into a
poor family. He has two sons and a daughter, Mohamad Mehdi and Mohamad Hadi and
Majedeh. The children live in Vancouver,
Canada and not in Iran.
Najjar has a
degree in Mechanical Engineering from Khaje Nassiredin Tousi University in 1984
and a Masters Degree in Executive Management from the Industrial Management
Institute in 1985. He is fluent in English and in Arabic. However, his main expertise lies in military
affairs and particularly in weapons technology and in conducting proxy warfare.
Early Military
Career
Najjar
currently holds the rank of Brigadier General in the Revolutionary Guards and is
one of the key figures in the organisation. Najjar joined the guards when it
was created in 1979, gained a good reputation in the early stages of the Iran-Iraq
war and quickly rose up the ranks. He took an active part in the crackdown on
the Iranian Kurds (who were demanding autonomy after the Islamic revolution)
and thus earned his reputation as a military man. His participation in the
Kurdistan campaign is alleged to have included the massacre of the inhabitants
of Qarna village[1] on
the outskirts of Naghadeh.
After
Kurdistan, Najjar moved to the region of Sistan and Baluchistan (bordering Afghanistan)
and worked as a staff officer in the Revolutionary Guards Central Command
Headquarters responsible for the area’s affairs.
Najjar
quickly moved up the ranks to become the head of the Middle East Directorate[2]
of the Revolutionary Guards in 1982. A fluent Arabic speaker,
Najjar also commanded the Guards expeditionary units in Lebanon. Najjar’s
promotion coincided with a new mandate to expand activity beyond Iran and Iraq in the wake of early Iranian
successes in the Iran-Iraq war.
Consequently, under Najjar’s leadership of the Middle East Directorate,
Iran extended and consolidated its influence amongst the radical Islamic groups
in Arab countries and in particular in Palestine and Lebanon.
One of the
key successes was the relationship that was established with the newly formed
Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran provided weapons, training and
ideological guidance to Hezbollah and it is Iran that has encouraged Hezbollah
to undertake many of its successful military operations. Among the first of these were the bombings in
Beirut in 1983.[3]
Najjar is connected with these bombing through his role as head of the Middle
East Directorate and through his particular role in Lebanon.[4] The late Lebanese militant and first “military
commander” of Hezbollah, Imad Mughniyeh,[5]
was a close friend of Najjar.[6]
Developing
Iran’s Military Technology
After 1985,
Najjar returned to Iran and
concentrated on developing the military industry in Iran
which included procurement of arms and technology from Russia and China as well as developing
military hardware and logistics operations for the Revolutionary Guards. In
1989, the Ministry of Revolutionary Guards was amalgamated with the Ministry of
Defence. Najjar then served as the head of the Armaments Unit in the Military
Industries Organisation (MIO). Prior to
being appointed as the Minister of Defence by Ahmadinejad in 2005, Najjar also
headed the Munitions Section and was the deputy head of Planning and
Development within the MIO. In this
capacity
he accompanied Hashemi Rafsanjani to China and Russia in 1992 for the procurement
of weapons technology.
Najjar
and the Ministry of Defence
Najjar served
as Minister of Defence between August 2005 and August 2009. As Defence Minister,
Najjar oversaw a strengthening of Iran’s defensive capability in line with
Iranian ambitions to achieve regional hegemony and a desire to protect Iran against
potential external threats. Najjar is regarded as an elite veteran member of
the Revolutionary Guard with a proven track record of conducting proxy warfare
against the US and Israel. Najjar
has a large network of operatives and contacts, and he would be well placed to
oversee a campaign of clandestine warfare against American and Israeli
interests. He was therefore the obvious
choice for Ahmadinejad’s Minister of Defence.
As the new
Minister of Defence, one of Najjar’s first public statements was a stern
warning to the US, stating:
"Iran
is at the height of readiness to teach such a lesson to any likely aggressors
that they will repent their action for eternity." He then continued more
specifically saying, “if Washington
wants to unleash the flames of war, without a doubt the resultant fire will
burn the White House more than anywhere else”.[7]
Najjar sought
Russia’s help to strengthen Iran’s air
defence and missile systems. He signed a contract worth $700 million towards
the end of 2005 for 29 Russian-made Tor-M1 air defence missile systems and also
for the training of Iranian specialists as radar operators and crew commanders.
The missiles were delivered to Iran
in February 2009.
Ahmadinejad
considers Najjar's threatening rhetoric and his strengthening of the Iranian
defence capability to be the one of the reasons why America softened its stance
against Iran.[8]
Najjar as
Interior Minister
The Ministry of Interior is one of the
key ministries in Iran. This ministry is in charge of undertaking,
supervising and reporting on elections.
It also controls policing and internal security. The Minister of Interior was therefore one of
the most crucial of the appointments to be made by Ahmadinejad after the
elections of June 2009. The appointment of Najjar to the post of
Interior Minister (replacing Sadeq Mahsouli who was moved to the Intelligence
Ministry) illustrates the continued influence of Revolutionary Guards veterans
in the Iranian cabinet. After the disputed June elections in Iran this year,
the widespread protests which erupted in Iran have become the most imminent
threat to the survival of the current government in Iran. Najjar was nominated
by Ahmadinejad as the new Interior Minister to quell the protests and restore
calm to the country. Najjar was approved by the Majlis as Interior Minister
with 182 votes for, 75 abstentions and 25 against.
Najjar, like
Ahmadinejad, is convinced that the current wave of protests in Iran is directed
by the United States. Both men believe
that America is now seeking to overthrow the Iranian government using “soft
tactics” to bring about “regime change”. Since becoming the Interior Minister, Najjar
has adopted this rhetoric and has begun military preparations to quell domestic
unrest. Najjar has warned the protesters that there will be no more ‘kindness’
or ‘tolerance’ shown towards the protesters. He stated the initial reluctance
of the Iranian government to treat troublemakers harshly should not be seen as
a sign of softness but that the government of Iran wanted the “plotters to show
their full hand to the public”.[9]
After the
Ashura riots that broke out in Iran in December 2009,[10]
Najjar warned all those who had been arrested or taken part in the riots that
they would be dealt with as “Mohareb” and added that, “It is clear as to what the
religious edicts regarding Mohareb are”.
The
term “Mohareb” literally means fighter.
It also has a broader meaning as an Islamic offence of “waging war
against God”. The punishment for people convicted as mohareb is execution,
according to Iran's
Sharia-based legal code. Najjar said,
“I have ordered the Law Enforcement Forces to show no mercy towards
protesters.” As a
result, the Iranian judiciary will put a
number of opposition protesters on trial later this month (January 2010) and
several of them will be charged with the offense of “mohareb”.
Comment:
Najjar is close to the Supreme Leader and is trusted by him. In November 2009,
Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Najjar as his commander of the police (in addition
to his role as Interior Minister), thereby ceding further authority to him. Najjar had written to Khamanei requesting that
this authority be conferred to him. He wrote,
“In
line with the critical responsibilities of the Interior Minister to ensure
public security and order and as the close connection between this ministry and
the police would ensure order and security [in the country] I call on the
commander-in-chief [Khamenei] to allow the Interior Minister to assume control
over the civil forces”. In response to the letter, Ayatollah Khamenei wrote “I
appoint you as deputy commander of Armed Forces in charge of police forces.” End
comment.
[1] A 1980 Massacre of 68 civilians in the Kurdish village of Qarna by
Revolutionary Guards in response to the killing of 15 Iranian soldiers by
Kurdish separatists. It was colloquially known as "Iran's My Lai
massacre" by Iranian Marxists at the time.
This is a reference to the mass killing of Vietnamese civilians by a
unit of the American army in 1968.
[2] The Middle East Directorate strived
to export the Islamic revolution beyond Iran.
Its areas of operation focused on Lebanon, the Palestinian territories,
Jordan and the Gulf states.
[3] On October 23, 1983 two almost simultaneous
suicide car bomb attacks against foreign military targets in Lebanon, killed
241 US Marines and 58 French paratroopers. The attack resulted in the
withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force stationed in Lebanon.
[4] Later, in 1987, Iran’s then Minister of Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen
Rafiqdoost stated that Iran had supplied the TNT explosives used in these
bombings. The bombing met with the approval of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
and they commemorate the “courageous act by martyrdom-seeking operatives who
sent the US Marine servicemen to Hell”.
[5] Though described in the international
press as military commander of Hezbollah, Mughaniyeh was actually a key member
of Hezbollah’s intelligence wing and latterly lived in Syria.
[6] It is also thought that Najjar and Mughniyeh organised the kidnapping
of Rich Higgins, US intelligence officer in Lebanon in February 1988.
[8] During the televised presidential debates,
Ahmadinejad confidently talked of how under his predecessor, President Khatami,
Iran was named as the axis of evil by the US president but under Ahmadinejad’s
presidency “America was reduced to begging Iran to sit round the negotiating
table”.
[9] Source 002.
[10] Aftab Yazd daily newspaper quoted Najjar as
saying that 3.5 Million people took part in the pro-government rallies after the
Ashura protests and that the riots were instigated by the monarchists and
Mujahideen-e Khalq supporters.
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