An Overview of the Economic Branch of the IRGC in the East

The newspaper Shargh has reported on the role of the "Khatam Headquarters," the economic branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), citing Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan as saying: "The main government projects in the oil, gas, and telecommunications sectors are under the control of the Headquarters." According to the newspaper, Dehghan stated during a visit to the exhibition "The IRGC's Power in the Construction Field": "By the end of this year, over 50 impactful projects in the national economy have been entrusted to the Headquarters; of course, we have not been able to fulfill some of the promises we made in the government, but we insist that this happens," adding that "currently, the main government projects in the oil, gas, petrochemicals, transportation, dams, water transfer, and even in telecommunications and IT are under the control of the Headquarters." The Defense Minister of Hassan Rouhani's government emphasized that "our effort has been to convince and inform the government officials about its capacities. In the past two to three years, we have tried to get government officials to recognize the Headquarters' capacities in the first stage, to consider them as their own in the second stage, and to utilize them in the third stage." Mohammad Hassan Najmi in the Shargh report wrote: The center of the "Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters" is a building in the Quds Town (West Town) of Tehran, "where, according to the deputy commander of the IRGC, the management of the economic war against the arrogance is in their hands," and in addition to the government projects mentioned by the Defense Minister, "if attention is paid to some bridges and signs of construction projects in Tehran, the name of the current mayor's former service location appears: Khatam Headquarters," and even if "the name of the Headquarters is not present, the name of one of the subsidiary groups of Khatam Headquarters is visible." The Shargh newspaper noted that "the Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters includes the Kaim Construction Headquarters, Noah Construction Headquarters, Karbala Construction Headquarters, and Kowsar Construction Headquarters as its subsidiaries" and stated that they do not limit their activities to one field; they only undertake large projects; from the "Sadr" highway in Tehran to phases 15 and 16 of South Pars; from the "Gotvand" dam to the "Haram to Haram" highway. In 2011, by order of the IRGC's commander, it was decided that the Khatam Headquarters would not engage in projects worth less than 100 billion tomans. The newspaper Shahrvand dedicated its front page to the presence of several government officials at the Nasirabad cemetery, the location of this newspaper's report on the phenomenon of "grave sleeping" and the gathering of some residents of this area to express their problems. According to the newspaper, on Friday, Ali Rabiei, Minister of Welfare, Mohammad Nahavandian, Head of the Presidential Office, Hossein Hashemi, Governor of Tehran, Anoushiravan Mohseni Bandpay, Head of the Welfare Organization, and officials from the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters visited the Nasirabad cemetery and the Ekvan camp. The Shahrvand newspaper also emphasized in its editorial titled "Grave Sleepers and the Double-Edged Sword of Social Exclusion": "Perhaps in recent years, no newspaper report has generated as much reaction as Shahrvand's report on grave sleepers, but the emotional and passionate reactions, which even excited artists, carry the risk of leading the issue astray and consequently being forgotten after a while. The very important point of the matter is that perhaps few people have read the entire report. The most impactful aspect was the image. An image of an extremely miserable individual in a grave that was lined up like rows of apartments next to each other, covered by a plastic roof. The emotional reaction stemmed from the question of why, after making grand promises about the Mehr Housing project, which was supposed to provide every Iranian with an acceptable shelter, we have reached a point where living humans have chosen the grave as their apartment?" This newspaper emphasized that "the way to counter deviants and even social deviants is not social exclusion," stating that the report is not a sign of poverty but a sign of the depth of dysfunction caused by addiction. However, alongside the issue of addiction, another important subject is visible in the image. A subject that many individuals may have been affected by. The dignity of the human being has been broken, and his dignity has been disregarded." Abbas Akhoundi, Minister of Roads and Urban Development, in an interview with the newspaper Etemad about the previous government said: They "created a disaster and left," and now "the Mehr Housing units are empty and deteriorating." The Minister of Roads and Urban Development emphasized that "maintaining roads" in Iran alone requires an 8 trillion toman budget, adding that "for a long time, the transportation fleet in various sectors has been neglected. We have 127,000 trucks over 35 years old in our road fleet. Or our air fleet is 23 years old. In the railways, until last year, we had wagons that were 64 years old and still in operation." Abbas Akhoundi told Etemad: "You wouldn't expect all these renovations, which require thousands of billions of tomans in investment, to be completed in a short period. If these renovations are to be carried out in the economy like in Germany, they are significant actions. With all this said, our claim is that, firstly, we have seen the issue. Secondly, we have solutions within the economy for them and are not necessarily reliant on the government's budget, and thirdly, we have started, and the renovation work has begun. The figures we are talking about are in the millions; even in the financial constraints we are grappling with, when we say 65,000 devices will be renovated, we need to multiply this number by 350 million tomans to clarify what figure we are talking about." The newspaper Iran, close to the government, dedicated its front page to an image related to the "beginning of a nationwide ceasefire in Syria" and wrote: "The government of Bashar al-Assad and armed opponents signed a nationwide ceasefire agreement with the mediation of Russia and Turkey and the participation of Iran, which has been implemented since midnight on December 30." According to this newspaper, "The President of Russia was the first to announce the ceasefire agreement. Vladimir Putin, after a meeting with the foreign and defense ministers of his country, announced the ceasefire and emphasized that three documents have been signed in this agreement: the first document is the agreement between the government and armed opponents regarding the ceasefire territory, the second document is about the necessary measures to maintain the ceasefire, and the third document is a statement about readiness for peace negotiations." According to the newspaper Iran, "ISIS and the al-Nusra Front will not be included in this agreement," and while "seven armed groups have signed the agreement, groups that do not sign this agreement will be considered terrorist." Kayhan, in its headline emphasizing what it describes as "the formation of a new balance of power in the region centered around Iran and Russia," wrote: "In the matter of the trilateral meeting and establishing a ceasefire (in Syria), as the first consequence of it, neither the US nor European countries were present, nor are they mediators of the ceasefire. However, Iran is present and, along with Russia, will determine the outcome." The newspaper Noavaran wrote in a note: "This ceasefire, although it can be considered part of political solutions, does not seem to be sustainable in the future. After all, Syria, as a country that has managed to emerge from this crisis, cannot regard this matter as a sustainable ceasefire," and now "the conditions are such that in the coming months, this ceasefire will be broken, and parties like ISIS and the al-Nusra Front will not adhere to this agreement." Hassan Hanizadeh, a regional issues analyst, noted the influential role of Russia and Turkey in announcing the ceasefire in Syria in a note in the newspaper Noavaran, stating that efforts have been made to exclude Iran from the axis of these negotiations. For this reason, many of these groups insist that Hezbollah forces must leave Syrian soil. This means that the resistance axis must be removed from the political equations of Syria." Mohsen Mirdamadi, a reformist figure who was arrested and imprisoned after the 2009 protests, stated in an interview with the newspaper Arman: "Hassan Rouhani is facing an organized radical current, which has its roots in Ahmadinejad's government and has no relation to the reformist government." This reformist figure emphasized that "overall, the conditions for Mr. Rouhani are harder than those of the reformist government, and the pressures on Mr. Rouhani's government are greater than those on the reformist government," stating that "Mr. Rouhani's cabinet has serious weaknesses that he must urgently and fundamentally address before these weaknesses spread to the entire government." The newspaper Hamdeli reported that Hossein Ansari Rad, a representative from the first, fifth, and sixth Majlis and head of the sixth Majlis's Article 90 Commission, stated: "Some openly consider the republic as a partner, do not regard the people's vote as credible, and openly declare that our view of sacred texts is the same as that of 1400 years ago, and anyone who says otherwise must be silenced." The newspaper Qanoon, in an unprecedented move, published a design of the famous Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad on the occasion of the death of her sister Pouran Farrokhzad alongside her. This newspaper wrote about the death of Pouran Farrokhzad, who was also a poet and researcher: Pouran Farrokhzad "was in love with Forough, overlooked and helpless, tired of appropriate and inappropriate comparisons, disheartened and frustrated by the officials of the Ministry of Culture at the time for not granting permission for two of her collections, 'Another Rain is Not Water' and 'Mahr-e-Mahr,' weary of the black gaze of emerging literary critics towards her family, and upset by the new remarks about Forough, passed away." In this context, grave sleeping is the hottest subject in Iranian newspapers.