Iran warns of ‘hazardous penalties’ after EU designates Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group

[ad_1] Iran threatened Thursday to unleash “hazardous penalties” after the European Union formally designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, amid escalating tensions between Tehran and Western powers.

EU overseas ministers permitted the designation at a gathering in Brussels, describing it as a response to Iran’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests.

“Repression can not go unanswered,” EU overseas coverage chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X in asserting the choice. “Any regime that kills hundreds of its personal individuals is working towards its personal demise.”

The designation locations the IRGC on the identical terrorist listing as al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic State group, Kallas stated. “In case you act as a terrorist, you also needs to be handled as a terrorist.”

European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen shared the sentiment. “‘Terrorist’ is certainly the way you name a regime that crushes its personal individuals’s protests in blood,” she stated.

In a press release carried by Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic Information Company (IRNA), the Common Workers of the Iranian armed forces known as the EU’s choice “illogical, irresponsible and spiteful,” accusing European leaders of appearing in obedience to U.S. and Israeli insurance policies.

The assertion claimed the IRGC has performed a central position in combating extremist teams, together with the Islamic State , and warned that “hazardous penalties of this hostile and provocative choice will fall instantly on the European policymakers.”

Iranian Overseas Minister Abbas Araghchi accused European governments of escalating tensions and growing the danger of a wider Center East conflict.

“Europe is as a substitute busy fanning the flames,” Araghchi wrote on X. A number of international locations are working to avert all-out conflict within the area, however European states will not be amongst them, he argued.

He described the IRGC designation as a “main strategic mistake” made on the behest of the USA and warned that Europe would endure extreme penalties if battle erupts, together with a surge in power costs.

Fashioned in 1979 within the aftermath of Iran’s Islamic revolution, the IRGC operates individually from the remainder of the Iranian armed forces and has its personal military, navy, air power, intelligence and particular forces branches. Its position is to protect the Islamic Republic, and it stories on to Iran’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The IRGC is estimated to area between 150,000 and 190,000 troops, together with an elite expeditionary unit referred to as the Quds Pressure that was individually designated by the USA as a terrorist group in 2007.

As well as, an IRGC department known as the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia, has an estimated 450,000 members, in accordance with the US-based Institute for the Research of Struggle, and performs a key position in suppressing anti-government protests.

The Revolutionary Guard was beforehand designated a “overseas terrorist group” by the USA in 2019 throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period. The US at the moment blamed Iran for the deaths of 608 American service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011 by the hands of what it known as the “IRGC’s proxies.”

In opposition to the backdrop of US threats to strike Iran for the second time since June, Tehran has introduced a major enlargement of its military capabilities . Iran claimed it has added 1,000 “strategic drones” to its navy stockpile, IRNA reported Thursday, although it stays unclear what forms of drones had been added.

The nation additionally introduced that IRGC naval forces will perform live-fire workout routines subsequent week within the Strait of Hormuz, a slender waterway by means of which greater than a fifth of the world’s oil and enormous share of liquefied pure fuel move.

Analysts say the EU’s terrorist designation of the IRGC is basically symbolic. “This measure may have little or no impression,” Trita Parsi, govt vp of the Quincy Institute for Accountable Statecraft, informed CNN. “Europe already has nearly no commerce with Iran. It was not about to have extra commerce. It was not about to be a mediator.”

Parsi famous that comparable measures have failed to change Iranian conduct, stating that the USA has lengthy listed the IRGC as a terrorist group, but “right here we're on the verge of conflict.”

The designation comes amid heightened regional tensions and renewed warnings from Washington. Trump has threatened to strike Iran if it doesn't signal what he has known as an “equitable” nuclear deal.

Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref stated his nation ought to “be ready for a state of conflict,” in accordance with IRNA, including that “whether it is imposed upon us, we'll defend ourselves, and the top of the conflict is not going to be with the enemies.”

US Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth underscored that military options stay firmly on the desk if diplomacy fails.

“ When President Trump stated we’re not getting a nuclear Iran, you received’t have a nuclear bomb, he meant it,” Hegseth stated throughout a Cupboard assembly Thursday. “We will likely be ready to ship no matter this president expects of the Struggle Division,” he added.

UN Secretary-Common António Guterres on Thursday urged the events to have interaction in diplomacy to de-escalate the tensions and “keep away from a disaster that might have devastating penalties within the area.”