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The untold story of the IRGC’s Parisian roots and Irish guerrilla training
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | Mon, January 12, 2026 at 8:30 AM EST | Akhtar Makoii

Posted on 01/17/2026 3:23:53 AM PST by piasa

The first members of what would later become Iran’s fearsome revolutionary guards were trained in a quiet village outside Paris. Those close to the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was in exile in Neauphle-le-Château, secretly began recruiting Iranian revolutionaries in the West to establish a “people’s army”. One of the group’s founders, Mohsen Sazegara, has told The Telegraph that the aim in 1978 was to gather loyalists prepared to confront the Shah’s regime head-on in Iran.

The recruits first studied the theory of guerrilla warfare before being dispatched to Beirut and Damascus for military training. There, they learnt combat, sabotage, how to establish small groups of guerrilla forces and clandestine operations, preparing for a long struggle against Mohammad Reza Shah’s regime in Tehran. The training principles were derived from studying the experiences of several guerrilla forces, including the Irish National Liberation Army.… (more)

(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Iran; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1978; 1979; atatollahkhomeini; beirut; damascus; fartyshadesofgreen; france; inla; iran; iranianrevolution; ireland; irgc; irishterrorists; irsp; lebanon; mohsensazegara; neauphlelechateau; shahofiran; socialists; syria

1 posted on 01/17/2026 3:23:53 AM PST by piasa
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To: Fedora

Ping


2 posted on 01/17/2026 3:26:43 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: piasa

…Khomeini, who had been in exile for 15 years, created a secret back-channel to the US, new documents show.

In a letter to then-president Jimmy Carter, he wrote: “You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans.”

He pledged his Islamic Republic will be “a humanitarian one, which will benefit the cause of peace and tranquillity for all mankind”, the BBC revealed.
He returned on Feb 1.
A day after the revolution, on Feb 12 1979, the idea of establishing a people’s army resurfaced among the new Islamic Republic authorities.…


3 posted on 01/17/2026 3:35:52 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: piasa

The INLA political wing is the Irish Republican Socialist Party


4 posted on 01/17/2026 3:38:19 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: piasa

Wonder if he is still here, since Schumer probably broke whatever the agreed deal was by now.

Trump to allow Malachy McAllister to stay
Irish Central ^ | 4/27/19 | Irish Central Staff
Posted on 4/27/2019, 11:39:23 PM by OddLane

Former Irish republican fighter and asylum seeker Malachy McAllister will not be deported from the U.S., according to a Washington report.

Kevin McAleenan, President Trump’s newly-appointed acting secretary of Homeland Security, has granted a request from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to stay the deportation of McAllister, the Washington Examiner reports.

On Thursday, Schumer had called McAleenan asking him to overrule ICE’s decision not to grant McAllister political asylum...

(Excerpt) Read more at irishcentral.com ...
1 posted on 4/27/2019, 11:39:23 PM

Schumer defending rabid terrorists like the Irish National Liberation Army now.

2 posted on 4/27/2019, 11:49:17 PM by Olog-hai

To: OddLane
Send all of them back.
‘McAllister owns a bar in Manhattan. Two of his four children are recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows those illegally in the U.S. to avoid deportation and work. A third child married a U.S. citizen and another was deported to Ireland.’

4 posted on 4/28/2019, 12:07:04 AM by Theoria


5 posted on 01/17/2026 3:45:02 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: piasa
Here we go again.....its the dirty Irish!

But wait , wait, Ireland was never a theocracy.

Islam has nothing to do with it you see, because Europe has been demographically invaded by Islam.We are not supposed to go there. So its the fault of those dirty Irishmen !

BUahahahahahahahahahah!

Sinn Féin.....Alahwahoo Whackbar !

Deport them all.

6 posted on 01/17/2026 3:54:45 AM PST by Candor7 (Ask not for whom the Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!<img src="" width=500</img><a href="">tag</a>) )
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To: piasa
Who paid the bills for the anti-Shah military training and weapons?
7 posted on 01/17/2026 4:21:14 AM PST by zeestephen (Trump Landslide? Kamala lost the election by 230,000 votes, in WI, MI, and PA.)
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To: sauropod

.


8 posted on 01/17/2026 7:20:31 AM PST by sauropod
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To: zeestephen

Some would have been paid by the Baath Party of Iraq, which provided a safe haven for Khomeini and his people before he went to France.


9 posted on 01/17/2026 9:06:53 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: piasa

Everything bad that happens in the world is because of the French.


10 posted on 01/17/2026 9:07:26 AM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: zeestephen

And the USSR


11 posted on 01/17/2026 9:13:22 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: zeestephen

Probably some Irish Americans as well. It is a good question.


12 posted on 01/17/2026 9:25:04 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: piasa

“And the USSR”

Yeah, a lot of damage from them that we’re still dealing with, but the French were at it longer and they’re still at it.


13 posted on 01/17/2026 11:11:21 AM PST by rxh4n1
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To: piasa
Re: "The Baath Party of Iraq provided a safe haven for Khomeini..."

I had no idea.

Saddam Hussein joined Baath in 1957.

Saddam Hussein was a leading member of Baath and became Vice President of Iraq in 1968.

In 1980, as President, Saddam invaded Iran, attempting to re-claim some disputed oil rich territories.

14 posted on 01/17/2026 6:33:06 PM PST by zeestephen (Trump Landslide? Kamala lost the election by 230,000 votes, in WI, MI, and PA.)
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To: piasa

“. . .The first members of what would later become Iran’s fearsome revolutionary guards were trained in a quiet village outside Paris.

Those close to the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was in exile in Neauphle-le-Château, secretly began recruiting Iranian revolutionaries in the West to establish a “people’s army”. . .

The training principles were derived from studying the experiences of several guerrilla forces, including the Irish National Liberation Army.”

INLA, the paramilitary wing of the the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), was the most violent progeny of the Irish Republican Army. They emerged out of opposition to the 1972 ceasefire and quickly networked with various terrorist groups connected to the Trotskyist network in Paris, Brussels, and London, including the French terrorist group Action Directe, the Red Army Faction, and the PLO. At the time of the Iranian revolution, INLA arms trafficking in Paris was coordinated by Seamus Ruddy, who later became disillusioned by the group about 1981, leading to him being “disappeared” by his former comrades in Paris in 1985:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LQeYi7k5BE
Seamus Ruddy: The Long Search | Part I

https://www.irishecho.com/2017/5/remains-likely-those-of-seamus-ruddy

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/seamus-ruddy-inquest-held-33-years-after-his-murder-in-france-1.3489357


15 posted on 01/18/2026 1:40:43 AM PST by Fedora
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To: piasa

https://republican-news.org/current/news/2015/06/the_forgotten_disappeared.html

. . .This still modest organization, in 1979 organized the attack within the British parliament in London which killed Airey Neave, the politician who placed Margaret Thatcher on the rails of power and a supporter of an uncompromising line in the Irish conflict.

Special services in subsequent years put out of harm’s way or eliminated most major elements of this organization, creating the conditions for a disruption that was going to last.

During the prisoners’ hunger strikes to demand political status in 1980/81, three INLA activists died. Seamus Ruddy played an important role as organizer whose role was as liaison between the strikers and their families.

Then, under the blows of repression, the organization began to fall apart. The proximity of some members of the INLA in the strafing of the Protestant Church in Darkley, County Armagh, in which three parishioners were killed in November 1983, marked the turning towards an increasing political drift.

Taking advantage of the imprisonment of a number of militants, a faction tried to control by means of force the organization’s military wing. To ensure the mastery of weapons, some came to France to get the contacts Seamus Ruddy might have managed in the sphere of arms trafficking. Indeed he was arrested in Greece in 1979 with weapons from the Middle East. He was considered to have valuable knowledge in this field.

According to several books and journalistic investigations, John O’Reilly from Belfast and one of his henchmen Peter Stewart, came to France to get their hands on these supply networks. It was this O’Reilly who with another member of his faction named Sean Hughes, who beat up a refugee activist in France. The beaten man had resigned because of the “evolution” of the organization. Intimidation and violence were used to neutralize dissidents: a foretaste of what which was to be committed.

John O’Reilly was gunned down with other members of his organization in Drogheda in Ireland by a rival faction the 20th of January 1987. Peter Stewart died of illness a few years later. Sean Hughes arrested in France for arms trafficking, was expelled to Africa. All attempts by the Seamus’s family and his partner, only encountered silence and threats.

Since 1994 the issue of the “disappeared” of the Northern Ireland conflict gained momentum. The families claimed the bodies of the missing. Today there are six outstanding cases, among them Seamus Ruddy.

It is likely that these people at the time received aid and support of French militants who probably believed they were acting for the cause of the Liberation of Ireland or for the establishment of a democratic socialist regime. . .


16 posted on 01/18/2026 1:51:55 AM PST by Fedora
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