By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Iran on Sunday declared the armies of European Union (EU) countries as “terrorist groups”, in retaliation to similar classification by the bloc.
This comes days after the EU foreign ministers agreed to include Tehran’s paramilitary organisation, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) to the bloc’s list of terrorist organisations.
EU’s decision came after what has been described as the Islamic Republic’s bloodiest crackdown on nationwide protests since 1979.
Security organisations, including the IRGC, have applied brutal force against demonstrators in recent weeks, with rights organisations estimating that at least 30,000 people been killed.
The terrorist classification announced by speaker of Iran’s parliament and a former Guard commander, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, will likely be mostly symbolic.
Iran applied a 2019 law, in use since the United States declaring the IRGC terror group that year, to reciprocally declare other nations’ militaries terror groups.
The decision comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East as US President Donald Trump weighs a possible military strike against Iran.
Iran also planned a live fire military drill for Sunday and Monday in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil trade passes.
Qalibaf said the European Union would have to face the consequences of its decision.
“By seeking to strike at the [Guard], which itself has been the greatest barrier to the spread of terrorism to Europe, Europeans have in fact shot themselves in the foot,” he said.
“Once again through blind obedience to the Americans, they decided against the interests of their own people.”
The IRGC, which also controls Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and has vast economic interests in Iran, answers only to Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
