Commander of IRGC Aerospace Claims 'Infiltration into US Command Centers'

The commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force has claimed that IRGC forces have monitored US activities in recent years by 'infiltrating US command control centers' and possess documents regarding 'US support for ISIS.' In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) published on Friday evening, September 15, Brigadier General Ali Hajizadeh stated, 'We infiltrated and were present in American command control centers over these years, and we saw where they look, where they strike, what they pass by, and how they support ISIS.' He claimed that 'documents of all this exist, and if one day we are allowed, we will publish them, and this would be a huge embarrassment for the Americans.' This senior IRGC official did not provide further details regarding the claim of 'infiltration into US command centers,' and his claim has not yet been met with a response from US officials. Since the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, Iranian officials have repeatedly claimed that the US and its allies created and strengthened ISIS to harm the Islamic Republic. In this context, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic has claimed that the opposition of the Americans and some of their allied countries to ISIS is not genuine, describing that 'they are not looking to eradicate' this group. Meanwhile, the US and the international coalition led by it are fighting against ISIS militants in both Iraq and Syria; although, while the US is considered an ally of the Iraqi government in the fight against ISIS, it supports a group of Bashar al-Assad's opponents who are also fighting ISIS in Syria. At the same time, the IRGC's missile activities, alongside the activities of its foreign operations branch known as the Quds Force, are described by US officials as destabilizing and destructive behaviors of Iran, and even after the Iran nuclear deal and the lifting of nuclear sanctions, other sanctions have followed. In response to these sanctions, Iranian government and military officials have repeatedly emphasized the expansion of the country's defense and missile program, and recently, the Iranian Minister of Defense stated that the Ministry of Defense is obliged to 'increase missile capabilities within the framework of approved programs,' and 'the twelfth government will continue this approach.' The commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force also claimed that Iranian defense industries have designed 'bombs weighing about 10 tons' at the request of this force. He stated that these bombs, which are 'dropped from Il-76 aircraft,' have high destructive power. This Iranian military official had previously stated in May of this year that 'we have 500-kilogram, one-ton, and two-ton bombs in Iran, and making a 10-ton bomb that the US used in Afghanistan is not a challenge for us.' However, the claim of possessing high-destructive bombs has not been confirmed or denied by any Iranian military officials. The Iranian Ministry of Defense, which introduces a range of military equipment produced in Iran, including various missile and anti-missile systems under the title of 'defensive capabilities,' has not mentioned the production of such bombs.