{"id":89462,"date":"2021-09-20T17:05:01","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T15:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=89462"},"modified":"2021-09-20T10:11:32","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T08:11:32","slug":"29-05-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=89462","title":{"rendered":"Meet Esmaeil Khatib, Iran\u2019s New Spymaster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Meet Esmaeil Khatib, Iran\u2019s New Spymaster<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Dr. Ardavan Khoshnood <\/strong>and <\/span>Erfan Fard<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,154, September 17, 2021<\/p>\n

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:\u00a0The new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, has selected cleric Esmail Khatib as Minister of Intelligence. Khatib is a radical Islamist with close ties to both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. During his tenure, we can expect a more aggressive approach by the Ministry of Intelligence, meaning more\u00a0terrorism and violence at the hands of the Islamic regime.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ebrahim Raisi was sworn in as the new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran on August 5, 2021. Six days later,\u00a0he released his cabinet selections. Raisi chose cleric Esmaeil Khatib\u00a0as Minister of Intelligence. Khatib\u00a0will be the regime\u2019s eighth\u00a0Minister of Intelligence, succeeding\u00a0Mahmoud Alavi.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who is Khatib?<\/b><\/strong><\/h5>\n

Information on Khatib is scarce. He was born in 1961-62 and is an influential cleric with close ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This is no surprise,\u00a0as he was Khamenei\u2019s\u00a0student when studying Islamic jurisprudence. He was also a student of Muhammad Fazel Lankarani, Naser Makarem Shirazi,\u00a0and Mojtaba Tehrani; all of them are radical Islamists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lankarani was a die-hard supporter of Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini, supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie,\u00a0and issued a\u00a0fatwa<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in 2006 against Azeri physician and writer Rafiq Tagi,\u00a0who was later assassinated. Makarem Shirazi was highly influential in the preparing of the constitution of the Islamic Republic. He is mostly known for his\u00a0objection<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to allowing females to watch sporting\u00a0events. In 2010, Shirazi\u00a0stated<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe Holocaust is nothing but superstition.\u201d Mojtaba Tehrani was a student of Khomeini\u00a0and is very close to the incumbent Supreme Leader. He is known primarily for his support for the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist\u00a0theory.<\/span><\/p>\n

Khatib is thus a highly conservative and radical cleric with close ties to the Islamic establishment and to Ali Khamenei.<\/span><\/p>\n

Khatib\u00b4s\u00a0<\/b><\/strong>p<\/b><\/strong>rior\u00a0<\/b><\/strong>p<\/b><\/strong>ositions<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike Mahmoud Alavi, the outgoing Minister of Intelligence, who had no previous experience in security or intelligence, Khatib has been involved with both. He does not, however, have a formal education in intelligence studies or political science. His expertise lies solely in Islamic jurisprudence.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1980-81, after the\u00a0Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(IRGC) was established, Khatib, then in his early twenties, joined the precursor of the IRGC Intelligence Organization. His exact role is unknown, though it is believed that he was highly active in the killing of Iranian opponents of the new Islamic regime who resided in Iranian Kurdistan. During that period, Khatib cooperated closely\u00a0with Mohsen Rezaee,\u00a0now a major general\u00a0of the IRGC and secretary of the powerful Expediency Discernment Council.<\/span><\/p>\n

In November 1997, Khatib was appointed head of the Ministry of Intelligence regional branch in Qom\u00a0by\u00a0then Minister of Intelligence Ali Fallahian,\u00a0another conservative cleric close to Khamenei. In 1992, during Fallahian\u00b4s tenure, the\u00a0Mykonos Restaurant assassinations<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0occurred. The restaurant, which was in Berlin, was attacked by terrorists sent from Iran to eliminate Iranian opposition members. Several Iranians were killed in the attack. A German court placed the blame on the Islamic regime\u2019s most senior leaders, including Fallahian. The AMIA attack in Argentina\u00a0in 1994 also occurred while Fallahian was Minister of Intelligence, leading to his being placed on an Interpol\u00a0wanted\u00a0list<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by Argentina.<\/span><\/p>\n

Khatib was previously head of the Security Department of the\u00a0Astan Quds Razav<\/strong>i<\/u><\/a>\u00a0(AQR),\u00a0a trust that manages the shrine of Imam Reza. The head of the AQR between 2016 and 2019 was current president Ebrahim Raisi, who\u00a0left the position when he was appointed Chief Justice of Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beside the above positions, Khatib has worked directly for Ali Khamenei in his administration\u00a0(the \u201cHouse of Leadership\u201d)\u00a0and also served as Iran\u2019s chief warden for several years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/b><\/strong>Ministry of Intelligence\u00a0<\/b><\/strong>under\u00a0<\/b><\/strong>Khatib<\/b><\/strong><\/h5>\n

Khatib has been installed as the new Minister of Intelligence at a time when the Islamic regime is being bombarded by one catastrophe after another. Tehran is struggling to keep the country safe from\u00a0infiltrations<\/a>,<\/strong> attacks on its\u00a0nuclear plants<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,<\/u>\u00a0and\u00a0assassinatio<\/strong>n<\/u><\/a>\u00a0attempts on its most\u00a0important<\/u><\/a>\u00a0human assets. Iranian intelligence and counterintelligence are deeply\u00a0compromised<\/a><\/strong>, and\u00a0conflicts roil between the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC Intelligence Organization. These factors were without doubt of the utmost importance when Khatib was selected.<\/span><\/p>\n

recommended by: Leon Rozenbaum<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\n<\/p>\n

Khatib is not only very close to Raisi and trusted by him, but also a loyal servant of Supreme Leader Khamenei. It is understandable, therefore, that he was selected to purge the Iranian intelligence community and make its counterintelligence and information protection more effective and secure. He has strong experience in intelligence and counterintelligence, the blessing and trust of the Supreme Leader as well as the country\u2019s most powerful ayatollahs, and perhaps most\u00a0importantly, he is trusted by the IRGC. Khatib is thus expected not only\u00a0to\u00a0\u201cclean up\u201d the Iranian intelligence community but also to diminish the ongoing conflict between the IRGC Intelligence Organization and the Ministry of Intelligence. We will probably see closer cooperation between the two.<\/span><\/p>\n

During Khatib\u00b4s tenure,\u00a0the Ministry of Intelligence\u00a0is like to be more aggressive on both the domestic and international fronts. Domestically, the use of torture and arbitrary arrests of opponents of the regime will increase as the ministry grows more proactive. In the region, we will probably see a more sectarian Iran. Khatib\u00b4s brand of Islamism, which puts him in the company of the most radical ayatollahs in Iran, will inevitably affect his decision-making. In the US and Europe, Iranian dissidents will be subjected to intensified surveillance and espionage. Islamic terrorism around the world at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran will increase in intensity.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Iran will be careful not to provoke the Western world, it will be much more ready to use terrorism and violence to eliminate opponents of the regime as well as anyone it considers a threat\u00a0to the regime.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Dr. Ardavan Khoshnood<\/strong>, a non-resident associate at the BESA Center, is a criminologist and political scientist with a degree in Intelligence Analysis. He is also an associate professor of Emergency Medicine at Lund University in Sweden.\u00a0<\/i><\/em>@ardavank<\/i><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Erfan Fard is a counterterrorism analyst and Middle East Studies researcher based in Washington, DC. @EQFARD<\/i><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Meet Esmaeil Khatib, Iran\u2019s New Spymaster Dr. Ardavan Khoshnood and Erfan Fard BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,154, September 17, 2021 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:\u00a0The new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, has selected cleric Esmail Khatib as Minister of Intelligence. Khatib is a radical Islamist with close ties to both Supreme Leader Ali […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89462"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89475,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89462\/revisions\/89475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}