State-Sanctioned Murder: Islamic Regime Covert War Against Dissenters

The room was tense. It was the second day of the interview, and Brigadier General Mohsen Rafiqdoust, the man who had once controlled Iran’s vast military supply chain, sat across from journalist Abdollah Abdi. He had already spoken candidly about many things, but this question—this one shifted the air in the room.

The moment the words left Abdi’s mouth, the tension became palpable. The general’s bodyguard or his assistant—Abdi wasn’t sure which—jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. It was a warning. A silent signal that he had crossed a line. But Rafiqdoust answered anyway.

“We used the commission from arms sales during the war to finance assassinations and other operations that had no allocated budget.”

In Iran, interviewing figures like Mohsen Rafiqdoust or Mohsen Rezaei—men who had walked the corridors of war, power, and security for decades—was never just a normal interview. There was always an invisible weight in the room, an unspoken hierarchy of what could and could not be asked.

Abdi, a journalist who had conducted hundreds of interviews with the Islamic Republic’s officials, was familiar with this atmosphere. He knew how far he could push and when to pull back. And so, at the time, he chose to withhold the segment from publication—not because of threats, but because of his own professional ethics, his oath, and personal considerations.

Years after that tense interview, Mohsen Rafiqdoust himself had gone public with the same admission, this time in an Iranian media outlet. Not only had he confirmed what he had said in 2018, but the IRGC affiliated News Agency, Tasnim had also tried to cast doubt on his words, claimed he had brain surgery, attempting to dismiss the statements as misinterpretations.

This changed everything for Abdi.

“Now that General Rafiqdoust himself has publicly stated these facts, I no longer feel bound by my previous ethical considerations. My responsibility to history and to the Iranian people compels me to share this account.”

For years, Iran’s covert financing of extrajudicial assassinations had been an open secret, whispered in diplomatic circles and documented in intelligence reports. The Mykonos trial had already laid out the state’s involvement, yet Iran had consistently denied direct responsibility. Now, one of the most powerful men from the regime’s early years had admitted, in his own words, that assassinations were funded through war-time arms deals—effectively confirming what had long been suspected.

But why had Rafiqdoust decided to speak now? What had changed? Abdi hints at a deeper reason, something he intends to write about later, once the full picture becomes clear.

For now, one thing is certain: the general’s words have reopened a wound the regime thought had long since healed.

Mohsen Rafiqdoust and His Revelations

The video surfaced suddenly, like a long-buried secret clawing its way into daylight. It wasn’t a leaked intelligence document or a whistleblower’s testimony. It was Mohsen Rafiqdoust himself, a man who had once walked the corridors of power in the Islamic Republic, now speaking with a casual certainty that sent shockwaves through Iran’s political and military establishment.

In the footage, “Haj Mohsen”, as many still call him, sits back with a knowing smile and admits what had been denied for decades—that the Islamic Republic had directly orchestrated assassinations abroad, that the funding for these operations had been carefully channeled through bank accounts in Frankfurt, and that every major Iranian security institution—from the Intelligence Ministry to the Quds Force—had played a role in executing these attacks.

The fallout was immediate. The IRGC scrambled to contain the damage, and the government’s media apparatus worked overtime to either dismiss or reinterpret his words. Some pro-regime analysts suggested Rafiqdoust was senile, his words misinterpreted or taken out of context. But the reality was clear—he had spoken too plainly, too deliberately.

For years, the Islamic Republic had maintained a delicate balance when it came to its extrajudicial assassinations. It denied involvement, labeled accusations as Western propaganda, and claimed opposition figures were either killed in internal disputes or by “rogue elements.” The Mykonos trial in Germany (1993-1997) had already shattered this illusion by legally implicating Iranian leaders in state-sponsored terrorism, but Tehran had managed to weather the diplomatic storm.

This time, however, it wasn’t foreign intelligence agencies, defectors, or opposition activists making the claims. It was one of their own—one of the regime’s architects.

The Man Behind the Revelations

To understand why Rafiqdoust’s words matter, one must first understand who he is. He wasn’t just another regime insider—he was there at the very beginning.

• Founding Member of the IRGC: In the early days of the revolution, he helped establish the Revolutionary Guards, ensuring its rise as a parallel military and intelligence force outside the control of Iran’s traditional army.
• Minister of the Revolutionary Guards (1982-1989): He oversaw the expansion of Iran’s military operations abroad, including early collaborations with Hezbollah and Iran’s intelligence network in Europe.
• Head of the Foundation of the Oppressed (Bonyad-e Mostazafan): After leaving the IRGC, he took control of this vast economic empire, a financial machine that funded the regime’s covert operations worldwide.

Rafiqdoust wasn’t just a witness to the events he described—he was one of the men making the decisions. His recent revelations weren’t accidental slips; they were the last confessions of a man who knew the system inside out and wanted to be remembered.

The Islamic Republic has survived four decades through suppression, secrecy, and controlled narratives. When one of its own breaks rank, the system immediately mobilizes.

• The IRGC issued vague, dismissive statements, neither confirming nor denying Rafiqdoust’s words.
• State media downplayed the comments, with some outlets choosing not to cover the video at all.
• Intelligence officials privately pressured journalists and analysts not to amplify the story.

But the damage was already done. In a single video, decades of official denials were undone.

As the news spread, the families of victims of Iran’s assassinations—from the Mykonos murders to the killing of Fereydoun Farrokhzad in Bonn in 1992—began speaking out. Activists and journalists resurfaced old evidence, now strengthened by an insider’s admission.

Iran’s Assassination Infrastructure

The world sees embassies as places of diplomacy, where ambassadors sip tea with foreign ministers, where international disputes are smoothed over with handshakes and carefully worded press releases. But inside the Islamic Republic’s embassies, behind the polished plaques and the carefully staged official visits, a different kind of diplomacy was at work—one carried out in whispers, in encrypted faxes, and, when necessary, at the barrel of a gun.

By the late 1980s, Iran had turned its global diplomatic network into a machine of surveillance, infiltration, and targeted assassinations. The infrastructure was sophisticated, a blend of intelligence operations, military coordination, and financial cover-ups. It wasn’t just about eliminating enemies; it was about sending a message—to exiled dissidents, to opposition leaders, to defectors who thought they had escaped Tehran’s reach.

The system was built carefully, layer by layer, with multiple institutions working in tandem. The Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) provided the planning and intelligence. The IRGC Quds Force handled the logistics and field operations. The Foreign Ministry ensured cover and diplomatic protection. And the Foundation of the Oppressed (Bonyad-e Mostazafan)—under the leadership of Mohsen Rafiqdoust—provided the money, funneled through front companies and “charitable” organizations.

From left: Gholam Keshavarz and Sedigh Kamangar two of the Iranian communist movement leaders and Fereydoun Farrokhzad who were assassinated.

How to Kill a Dissident

The blueprint for Iran’s overseas assassinations followed a pattern that intelligence agencies in Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East would later piece together from intercepted communications, defector testimonies, and, in some cases, the confessions of captured operatives.

Act One: “The Downtrodden Shall Prevail!”

“The Embassy (of the Islamic Republic) would be grateful if the German Foreign Ministry changes Kazem Darabi’s temporary residency status to permanent residency… The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran takes this opportunity to express its respect and at the same time emphasize that the downtrodden shall prevail over the oppressors.”

The passage above is from two official letters sent by the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Germany to the country’s foreign ministry, requesting a change in Kazem Darabi’s residency status along with that of several other Iranians. The letters are dated June 26, 1987, and September 9, 1987. According to Germany’s security agency, the individuals mentioned in these letters were operational and intelligence agents of the Islamic Republic abroad.

These letters were issued two years before Hossein Mousavian took over as ambassador to Germany. However, Darabi’s relationship with the Islamic Republic’s embassy and the Iranian consulate in Berlin intensified during Mousavian’s tenure and continued up to the day of the Mykonos assassinations.

As an undercover member of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC in Germany, Darabi initially worked with Hassan Jowadi, an Iranian diplomat based in Bonn. After Jowadi was expelled, and Mousavian became ambassador, Morteza Gholami, the embassy’s third secretary, took over as Darabi’s liaison officer.

Five years after these letters were sent—two years into Mousavian’s tenure as ambassador—two assassinations occurred in Germany within a month.

• August 7, 1992 (Mordad 9, 1371): Fereydoun Farrokhzad was brutally murdered in his home in Bonn.
• September 17, 1992 (Shahrivar 26, 1371): Sadegh Sharafkandi, leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, along with other opposition members, was assassinated at Mykonos restaurant in Berlin.

Kazem Darabi, whose residency the Islamic Republic’s embassy had pushed to make permanent, was arrested as the primary suspect and logistics coordinator for the Mykonos assassination. Several Lebanese individuals linked to Hezbollah and Amal were also identified and arrested as part of the hit squad. After a lengthy trial, all were convicted. Darabi received a life sentence but was released after 15 years and returned to Iran in 2007.

Following his return, he worked for some time with the Quds Force as part of Lebanon’s post-war reconstruction efforts after the 33-day war. Today, with Lebanon no longer serving as a playground for the Quds Force as it once was, his current activities remain unclear.

Act Two: The Watermelon and the Butcher’s Knife

In early 1992, four security-diplomatic agents of the Islamic Republic, stationed at the Haqiqian intelligence headquarters inside Iran’s embassy in Bonn, entered negotiations with Fereydoun Farrokhzad. These agents included:

• Morteza Rahmani Movahed, First Secretary of the Embassy
• Morteza Gholami, Third Secretary of the Embassy
• Two other attachés

Both Rahmani Movahed and Gholami were aides to Ambassador Hossein Mousavian.

Morteza Gholami, a key figure in the negotiations with Farrokhzad, was the same operative who acted as the liaison officer for Kazem Darabi, an undercover IRGC and Intelligence Ministry agent. Darabi was responsible for planning the Mykonos assassination in Berlin, securing safe houses, funds, and logistics for the hit squad.

Hossein Mousavian himself later admitted that the embassy had offered Farrokhzad a safe return to Iran, on the condition that he abandon his political activities and stop criticizing the Islamic Republic. At the time, Farrokhzad’s mother was on her deathbed, and the regime’s security operatives saw this as the perfect moment to pressure him. Their meetings with Farrokhzad took place in various locations, including his own home.

A few months after these meetings began, on July 30, 1992 (Mordad 9, 1371), Farrokhzad made the last purchase of his life. He told a shopkeeper he was expecting guests and bought a watermelon for the occasion. These were the last recorded words he ever spoke.

Seven days later, on August 6 (Mordad 16, 1371), German police found his lifeless body in his apartment. He had been dead for a week.

The Bonn criminal investigation revealed that Farrokhzad knew his killers. There were no signs of forced entry or struggle. He had been drugged, leaving him disoriented and defenseless at the time of his murder.

The same knife used to cut the watermelon was used to butcher his body—37 times.

The Money Trail

Mohsen Rafiqdoust’s revelations about how Iran funded its assassination campaigns confirmed what many had suspected. The money came through a network of front companies, religious organizations, and foreign bank accounts.

• Funds were laundered through Iran’s Foundation of the Oppressed (Bonyad-e Mostazafan), a massive economic empire controlling billions in assets.
• Bribes and slush funds were deposited into accounts in Frankfurt, used for weapons purchases, travel expenses, and paying off informants.
• Money moved under the cover of “charitable donations”, funneled through Islamic centers and cultural organizations in Europe.

This financial infrastructure made it almost impossible for law enforcement to track transactions back to Tehran. Even when authorities identified suspicious money flows, Iran had layers of deniability—it was always someone else’s account, some other organization’s money.

The Mykonos assassinations in 1992 were just one piece of a much larger campaign. Iran’s covert state had been killing its enemies abroad for years, including:

• Abdolrahman Ghassemlou (1989, Vienna) – Assassinated after being lured into peace talks.
• Kazem Rajavi (1990, Switzerland) – Shot dead near Geneva; the killers flew back to Tehran immediately.
• Fereydoun Farrokhzad (1992, Bonn) – Found stabbed to death, his body mutilated.
• Sadegh Sharafkandi and PDKI members (1992, Mykonos Restaurant, Berlin) – Shot execution-style inside a busy restaurant.

Each time, the execution method varied, but the pattern remained the same—surveillance, deception, execution, and diplomatic cover-up.

Hossein Mousavian and the Mykonos terror team

The Heart of European Operations

The Iranian Embassy in Bonn looked like any other diplomatic mission—a grand building, a flag fluttering in the wind, a team of well-dressed officials handling visas, trade agreements, and diplomatic affairs. But behind its carefully maintained façade, it was something else entirely.

To an outsider, it was the official voice of the Islamic Republic in Germany. To those who knew its secrets, it was a nerve center for espionage, surveillance, and targeted assassinations across Europe.

For nearly a decade, this embassy was not just a diplomatic post—it was the beating heart of Iran’s international terror network. It housed spies masquerading as consular officers, assassination teams that operated under diplomatic cover, and intelligence officers who spent their days tracking exiled dissidents.

45 Steps to Murder Headquarter

The embassy’s real power wasn’t in its front offices—where official statements were issued and meetings were held with German politicians. It was on the third floor, in a secretive intelligence hub known as the Haqiqian Headquarters.

Named after Alireza Haqiqian, the intelligence officer who ran it, this unit operated as a classified section within the embassy, where:

• Kill lists were compiled—dissidents, activists, and opposition leaders were categorized, ranked, and marked for surveillance or elimination.
• Surveillance teams coordinated their operations, tracking Iranian refugees, journalists, and activists across Germany and neighboring countries.
• Direct assassinations were planned, with operatives flown in, briefed, armed, and given their targets.

It was a fortress within a fortress, protected by diplomatic immunity. And just 45 steps above it, on the sixth floor, sat Hossein Mousavian, Iran’s ambassador to Germany.

Hossein Mousavian has spent decades cultivating the image of a refined diplomat—a man of peace, a man of diplomacy, a man whose mission was to build bridges between Iran and the West.

But in the 1990s, his embassy was hosting one of the most advanced assassination operations ever run by the Islamic Republic.

If he didn’t know what was happening just below his office, it would make him the most ignorant ambassador in modern history. If he did know, it would make him a key player in one of Iran’s most notorious state-sponsored killing sprees.

For years, Mousavian denied knowledge of the activities in Haqiqian Headquarters. But his own words later betrayed him.

Decades after the Mykonos assassinations, when pressed about Iran’s role in the killings, he admitted that handling the case was a “matter of state” for the Islamic Republic. Not just an issue for one agency. Not the work of rogue agents. It was an official operation.

And it was being run from inside his own embassy.

The Diplomats Who Were Really Spies

Iran’s embassy in Bonn didn’t just house diplomats—it was staffed with intelligence officers, military personnel, and members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Many were given titles like “cultural attaché” or “economic advisor”, but their real job was to monitor, infiltrate, and eliminate opposition figures in Europe.

Among them were:

• Morteza Rahmani Movahed – First Secretary of the Embassy, a key figure in Iran’s intelligence operations in Germany.
• Morteza Gholami – Third Secretary of the Embassy, directly involved in intelligence operations, particularly the entrapment and eventual killing of Fereydoun Farrokhzad.
• Alireza Haqiqian – The man who ran Haqiqian Headquarters, Iran’s intelligence base inside the embassy.
• Saeed Emami – Iran’s Deputy Intelligence Minister, who traveled to Germany at Mousavian’s request to help suppress the fallout from the Mykonos case.

These men weren’t engaged in diplomacy. They were engaged in war—a silent war against Iran’s enemies abroad, using embassies as bases and diplomatic pouches as weapons caches.

Surveillance, Blackmail, and the Preparation for Killings

The daily work of Haqiqian Headquarters wasn’t just assassinations—it was information gathering, manipulation, and psychological warfare.

Iranian intelligence officers inside the embassy used three main tactics to tighten their grip on opposition figures abroad:

The embassy wasn’t just tracking Iranian opposition members in Germany—it was keeping detailed files on activists, journalists, and former regime insiders across Europe.

Iranian dissidents who attended political meetings, human rights conferences, or protests against the Islamic Republic were often followed. Their names were recorded, their activities logged, and their addresses noted.

Some of these files ended up in Tehran, where decisions were made on who should live and who should die.

If the embassy identified an influential opposition figure, it didn’t always move to assassinate them immediately.

Instead, they went after their families.

Relatives of activists who remained inside Iran were harassed, interrogated, arrested, or even disappeared. The message was clear: Stop your activism, or your family will pay the price.

Some dissidents were lured into meetings with embassy officials, told they could return to Iran if they “repented” and stopped their opposition work.

One of these targets was Fereydoun Farrokhzad, the celebrated Iranian singer and opposition figure who was later butchered in his home in Bonn in 1992. Months before his death, he had been in contact with Iranian embassy officials, who had told him he could come back to Iran if he stopped his activism.

It was a lie. The real plan was already in motion.

The Mykonos Killings: A Murder Planned in Bonn

By 1992, Iran had escalated its assassination campaign in Europe. The embassy in Bonn played a direct role in orchestrating what would become one of the most infamous political murders in modern history—the Mykonos restaurant assassinations in Berlin.

Inside the embassy:

• The hit squad’s logistics were coordinated.
• Fake passports and money were provided through diplomatic channels.
• Surveillance reports were analyzed and updated before the operation.

When the bullets were fired in Berlin on September 17, 1992, the operation had been approved, planned, and resourced from the Iranian embassy in Bonn.

When Kazem Darabi and the Lebanese gunmen were arrested, the Iranian government scrambled to protect them.

Mousavian personally held over 300 meetings with German officials, trying to convince them that Iran had nothing to do with the murders.

Inside Haqiqian Headquarters, intelligence officers burned documents, erased files, and prepared contingency plans in case more Iranian operatives were caught.

The End of Bonn’s Reign of Terror

The Mykonos trial exposed everything. It forced the world to acknowledge that Iran was running a state-sponsored assassination campaign from within its embassies.

After the trial:

• The Haqiqian Headquarters was shut down, but Iran continued using other embassies as intelligence bases.
• Some of the embassy operatives were quietly reassigned to other countries, where they continued their work under different covers.
• Mousavian left Germany, later reinventing himself as a nuclear negotiator and “moderate”, while Alireza Haqiqian was rewarded with a senior diplomatic post.

But by the time the German court formally accused Iran’s leadership of ordering assassinations, the world finally saw what Iran’s embassies had truly been used for.

They weren’t places of diplomacy. They were headquarters for murder.

The Mykonos trial ended with a historic verdict—for the first time, a Western court had officially implicated the leadership of the Islamic Republic in state-sponsored assassinations. The judgment named names, pointed fingers at the highest levels of power in Tehran, and destroyed any plausible deniability the regime had maintained for years.

And yet, as the years passed, the dust settled. The headlines faded. The diplomats returned to their carefully crafted public roles. The assassins, though caught and convicted, were eventually sent back to Iran, where they were greeted not as criminals, but as heroes.

The regime’s machine of terror had been exposed—but had it really been stopped?

The trial confirmed what had been whispered in intelligence circles for years: Iran had turned its embassies into operational centers for political murder.

But despite the evidence, despite the damning court ruling, no action was ever taken against the true masterminds of the operation—those who sat in Tehran, issuing orders.

• Ali Khamenei remained Supreme Leader.
• Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani remained a central power broker.
• The Intelligence Ministry continued its work, merely refining its tactics.

No sanctions were imposed on the individuals named in the verdict. No further international court proceedings were initiated. Iran simply absorbed the damage, adjusted its approach, and carried on.

The West, despite its temporary diplomatic outrage, eventually returned to business as usual with Iran.

The Fate of the Key Players

Time caught up with the people who had been at the center of this story—but not in the way justice demanded.

The Assassins

• Kazem Darabi, the Iranian operative convicted for Mykonos, served 15 years in a German prison before being released and sent back to Iran in 2007. He was welcomed as a hero.
• Abbas Rhayel, the Lebanese gunman who fired the fatal shots, was also sent back to Lebanon, where Hezbollah ensured he was never punished.

The Diplomats-Turned-Intelligence Operatives

• Hossein Mousavian, Iran’s ambassador in Germany at the time, reinvented himself as a moderate. He moved to the U.S., became a scholar at Princeton University, and now presents himself as a peacemaker and nuclear policy expert.
• Alireza Haqiqian, who ran the Haqiqian intelligence headquarters inside the Iranian embassy in Bonn, became Iran’s ambassador to Tajikistan and later held senior intelligence positions within the Foreign Ministry.

The Masterminds in Tehran

• Ali Fallahian, the Iranian Minister of Intelligence who oversaw the assassination program, was never prosecuted. He went on to serve in multiple senior intelligence roles and remains a key player in Iran’s security apparatus.
• Saeed Emami, the Intelligence Ministry official who helped plan the assassinations, was arrested years later for his role in the Chain Murders of Iranian intellectuals in the late 1990s. He died under mysterious circumstances in prison, with the government claiming he had committed suicide.

The Men Who Knew Too Much

The Islamic Republic doesn’t always forgive its own assassins and enforcers. Some of the men involved in these operations met brutal ends themselves—silenced before they could talk too much.

The message was clear: The regime rewards its loyal operatives—until they become liabilities.

Allegations of Payment to Basque Separatists for Assassinations

In his latest attempt to rewrite history, Mohsen Rafiqdoust has now introduced a new narrative, one that seems both outlandish and deliberately misleading. He claims that Iran had no direct role in executing assassinations abroad and that the killings of Shapour Bakhtiar, Gholamali Oveissi, Shahriar Shafiq, Fereydoun Farrokhzad, and others were not carried out by Iranian operatives, but rather by fighters from the Basque separatist movement in Spain.

The Basque separatist movement, primarily represented by ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), named itself as an Marxist-Leninist group that fought for Basque independence from Spain. While ETA was notorious for bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations inside Spain and France, there was zero historical evidence that they carried out contract killings on behalf of foreign governments, let alone for Iran.

However, according to Rafiqdoust’s version of events, the Iranian regime merely “outsourced” the hits:

“We had a team over there—Oveissi, Ashraf’s son, Qartiyeh (Farrokhzad), Bakhtiar, and so on—all of them were targeted by our teams. But usually, it was the Basque boys (Spain) who were assigned to execute. They would take care of it, and that was it. No one could trace it back. We even went there (to the Basque region of Spain). These guys were warriors. We told them, ‘We want to assassinate this person.’ They said, ‘This is our price.’ There was an Egyptian cleric in Germany who was their friend. We placed the money with him and told him, ‘If the job is done, give it to them.’”

On the surface, Rafiqdoust’s claim is meant to serve a dual purpose:

1. It distances the Islamic Republic from direct involvement, allowing it to maintain deniability.
2. It shifts the blame to an unrelated European militant group, confusing the historical record and muddying the waters.

The Egyptian Cleric: An Unverifiable Claim

Rafiqdoust also introduced another convenient narrative device: the mysterious Egyptian cleric in Germany who allegedly served as the financial intermediary between Iran and the Basque militants.

“There was an Egyptian cleric in Germany who was their friend. We placed the money with him and told him, ‘If the job is done, give it to them.’”

This claim is suspicious for multiple reasons:

• Rafiqdoust never names this cleric.
• There is no record of an Egyptian cleric in Germany acting as a broker for assassinations.
• The Islamic Republic had direct channels to move money through diplomatic cover, so why use a third party?

This story seems like a calculated distraction—a way to inject a new, unverifiable figure into the narrative so that the story becomes harder to fact-check.

The Real Assassination Network

Contrary to Rafiqdoust’s fairy tale, there is extensive documentation proving that Iran itself carried out these assassinations through its own operatives—not Basque militants.

Take, for example, the assassination of Fereydoun Farrokhzad in Bonn in 1992:

• Iranian intelligence agents visited him multiple times before his murder, attempting to convince him to return to Iran.
• He was killed in a brutally symbolic manner, stabbed 37 times in his own home, the same way the regime had executed dissidents in the past.
• German intelligence traced the operation back to the Iranian embassy in Bonn, not to a Basque separatist cell.

Or consider the murder of Shapour Bakhtiar, Iran’s last prime minister before the revolution:

• He was stabbed to death in his home in Paris in 1991.
• The killers were later identified as Iranian operatives working under direct orders from Tehran.
• One of the assassins, Ali Vakili Rad, was arrested in Switzerland and sentenced in France, confirming Iranian involvement.

In both cases, the assassins were not hired foreigners—they were members of the Iranian intelligence network, working under diplomatic protection.

The Truth Remains Unchanged

Rafiqdoust’s version of events isn’t just implausible—it’s a blatant cover-up. No credible intelligence source, no legal document, and no forensic investigation has ever pointed to ETA as the executioners of Iran’s political assassinations abroad.

Instead, the mountain of evidence points back to the Islamic Republic itself—its embassies, its intelligence operatives, and its network of state-sponsored killers.

Rafiqdoust’s revisionism will not change the facts. It will not bring back the men and women Tehran has murdered in exile. It will not erase the verdict of the Mykonos trial, or the revelations made by defectors, or the archives of classified intelligence that link Iran directly to these killings.

But it does confirm one thing: Even now, decades later, Islamic regime still feels the need to lie about its crimes.

Internal Struggle within the Islamic Regime

Rafighdoost’s statements are not merely personal recollections of past crimes but a calculated intervention in an internal struggle within the Islamic Regime. His casual admissions of assassinations abroad and mass executions at home are not intended for the opposition, which has long known these facts. Instead, they are directed at the highest ranks of the regime, particularly those advocating a shift toward rapprochement with the West.

The Islamic Regime is fractured. One faction, centered around Ali Khamenei, clings to the belief that confrontation with the West remains viable. They see the economic collapse, the regional realignments, and the growing internal unrest, yet they insist that the Islamic Regime can continue on its current path. The opposing faction, comprised of key figures within the regime, including the IRGC and segments of the intelligence apparatus, acknowledges that the old order is collapsing. Their goal is to transition power without dismantling the state apparatus—preserving their privileges while abandoning the ideological framework of the Islamic Regime.

Rafighdoost’s revelations serve a dual purpose. To those within the regime advocating a negotiated transition, he offers a warning: the same West you seek to engage tolerated our past crimes. They knew of our assassinations, yet they continued their dealings with us. Why, then, should we change course now? This is a nostalgic appeal to the era when the regime wielded unchallenged violence, both domestically and internationally, without significant repercussions. The message is clear—Western powers can be managed as before, and there is no need for internal concessions.

But there is also a second, more immediate threat embedded in his words. By publicly recounting these crimes, Rafighdoost signals to his former comrades that any attempt to abandon the old guard will come at a heavy cost. Those seeking to realign with the U.S. and negotiate with Trump are reminded that they, too, are complicit. If they attempt to break ranks, they will be exposed, not just to international scrutiny but to the fury of the Iranian people. In this way, Rafighdoost preempts any move to isolate or scapegoat Khamenei’s faction. The warning is unmistakable: should the regime fracture completely, no one will be spared.

Yet, this internal struggle is taking place within the larger context of negotiations with the U.S. Unlike in previous rounds, where the Islamic Regime could manipulate diplomatic openings to its advantage, this time the stakes are different. The price of engagement is no longer just nuclear concessions—it is the recognition of Israel, an act that would represent the definitive end of the Islamic Regime in its current form. The balance of power has shifted, and Khamenei can no longer dictate terms.

This is where the Iranian people enter the equation. While different factions within the regime maneuver for survival, they are all acutely aware that the greatest threat comes from below. The wave of unrest sparked by Zhina/Mahsa Amini’s killing remains a specter over the Islamic Regime. The fear is not merely of external pressure or diplomatic isolation but of an uncontrollable uprising. If the regime’s internal struggle results in a negotiated transition, it will be an effort to preempt the revolutionary potential of the masses.

For the opposition, the key lesson is clear: any transition managed from above will serve only to preserve the power of those responsible for decades of repression. The only path to genuine change lies in ensuring that the Iranian people themselves determine the future. The Rafighdoost revelations, then, must not be treated as mere internal squabbles but as an opportunity to reignite the demand for justice. The past must not be buried in elite negotiations; it must be held up as evidence in the people’s court. Only then can the legacy of the Islamic Regime be truly dismantled.