The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) says its international arm, the Qods Forces, support “revolutionary and resistance movements of the dispossessed and the oppressed all around the world,” adding that the nature of the IRGC’s assistance is “advisory and educational.”
Tasnim reports that Mohammad Ali Jafari told a press conference on September 16, 2014, that whenever this form of assistance is needed in countries such as Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the IRGC will provide it.
When asked about the IRGC’s role in breaking the ISIS siege of the Iraqi city of Amerli, Jafari said that Iran’s assistance was only on the advisory level and that “the mojahed forces who had fought against Saddam Hussein in the Eight Year War carried out the operation and achieved victory.”
General Jafari was referring to the Badr Battalion in Iraq, which was armed and trained by the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War to fight against Saddam and maintained its connections with the IRGC even after the war ended. These forces were reportedly instrumental in breaking the Amerli siege.
Amerli had been under siege by ISIS forces for two months when Iraqi forces finally freed the city two weeks ago.
