Iran airports report Revolutionary Guards control of Iranian airports

# Background

• Based on the most updated data, Iran had 319 airports which made Iran the 22nd country in the world with most airports.
• Based on the 20 busiest airports in Iran 2016 report, we know that the total number of passengers was 54.468,298. 20% of this passenger was passengers of international flights (11,269,392).
• The total number of Aircraft Movements (Arrivals and Departures) among the 20 busiest airports in Iran during 2016 was 406,899 and the total weight of cargo transported at these airports was 498,774 tons.
• De jure the control of Iranian airports is in the hands of Iran Airports Company (IAC).
• De facto the control of the fields is on the hands of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. This is the activity you can see on the ground:
• The unit in the Revolutionary Guards, which is responsible for all weapons smuggling – including through Iranian airports – is called Unit 190.
• The Revolutionary Guards are operating a storage and logistics centers.
• The Revolutionary Guards use the airports to smuggle various goods without paying customs duties.
• They use airports and airlines to transport military equipment and soldiers to combat zones. They arrest people at the airport when they come or leave Iran.
• The IRGC also use control for private purposes, thus demonstrating de facto control – The Guards also have the use of terminals at Iranian airports, to enable members of their vast workforce to fly their illicit goods in and out of the country unchecked, and whichever route they use, they are guaranteed to avoid having to pay any form of export or import duties.




• Examples for these actions will be shown below.

# Iran Airports Company

• The Iran Airports Company (IAC) (Persian: ‫كشور‬ ‫هاي‬ ‫فرودگاه‬ ‫)شركت‬ is the holding and operating company for civilian airports in Iran. Its headquarters is located at Tehran Mehrabad International Airport but it has offices at all Airports in Iran.
• According to a report from 2013 we know that IAC was established by the Iranian regime in 1988. The IAC operates under the auspices of the Iranian government as a division of the Ministry of Transportation and Housing (formerly the Ministry of Roads and Transportation, until a merger in June 2011). The Ministry of Transportation and Housing has awarded contracts worth billions of dollars to the IRGC. (probably via Khatam al-Anbia)
• According to the IAC website is responsible for 54 Operational Airports including: Domestic Airports, 25 Custom Airports and 9 International Airports using about 16 million square meters of passengers terminals, runways and maneuvering areas,airports buildings and about 9 million Square Meters of access roads, green areas, Parking lots and other spaces.

# The busiest airports in Iran during 2016

• This section is intended to link airport names with passenger and cargo data, and is intended to illustrate the movement at Iranian airports.
• The data

Airport name	Owner	Operator	Hub for	Cargo	Passengers
Mehrabad international Airport	Iran Airports Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization / Iran Air Force	Iran-Air, Mahan Air, Iran Aseman Airlines, Meraj Airlines	113,65 tons	16,678,351
Mashhad International Airport	Iran Airports Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization / Iran Air Force	Iran Air, Tours Iran Aseman Airlines, Taban Air	86,681 tons	70,084
Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Aseman Airlines, Qeshm Air, Kish Air, Zagros Airlines	148,020 tons	7,821,369
Shiraz International Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization/Iran Air Force	Iran Aseman Airline, Sepehran Airlines	30,889 tons	3,308,111
Kish International Airport	Kish Free Zone Organization	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Kish Air	28,922 tons	2,740,076
Ahvaz International Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	Iran Air, Iran Aseman Airlines	19,128 tons	2,159,315
Isfahan International Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	Iran Air, Karun Airlines	24,128 tons	23,040
Tabriz International Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	ATA Airlines	11,799 tons	1,471,850
Bandar Abbas International Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	Iran Air	9,126 tons	934,053
Kerman International Airport (Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani Airport)	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	Mahan Air
Persian Gulf Airport	Iranian Ministry of Oil	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	Caspian Airlines, Iran Air, Iran Aseman Airlines, Karun Airlines, Kish Air, Mahan Air, Sepehran Airlines	5,246 tons	784,002
Abadan International Airport			Air Arabia, Iran Air, Iran Air Tours, Iran Aseman Airlines, Kish Air, Mahan Air, Qeshm Air, Taban Air, Zagros Airlines	3,944 tons	435,911
Zahedan Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	Iraqi Airways, Iran Air, Iran Air Tours, Iran Aseman Airlines, Kish Airlines, Mahan Air	3,697 tons	413,795
Bushehr Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization / Iran Air Force	Atrak Air, Iran Air, Iran Air Tours, Iran Aseman Airlines, Kish Air, Qeshm Airlines	3,901 tons	324,204
Qeshm International Airport	Qeshm Free Zone Organization		Qeshm Airlines
Urmia Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization / Iran Air Force	ATA Airlines,Atlas Global, Iran Air, Iran Air Tours, Iran Aseman Airlines, Pouya Air, Qeshm Air, Zagros Airlines	2,215 tons	328,792
Rasht Airport	Iranian Airports Holding Company	Iran Civil Aviation Organization	Iran Aseman Airlines, Iran Air, Caspian Airlines, Iranian Naft Airlines, Kish Air, Qeshm Airlines, Taban Air, Tailwind Airlines, Zagros Airlines	3,098 tons	304,145

# Unit 190 of IRGC

Unit 190 – During 2015 News reports have revealed a secret Iranian unit that transfers arms to terrorists and sectarian militias, highlighting Iran’s role in fomenting terror and sectarian violence across the Middle East. Iranian Unit 190 is a secret branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that has been smuggling arms and fueling regional conflict and instability. Reportedly, one of Unit 190’s warehouses is in the civilian area of the Tehran International Airport. Sources have uncovered the name of an Iranian member of this unit, Behnam Shahariyari, who runs a network of companies that have been evading sanctions by packing RPGs, night-vision equipment and long-range rockets in powdered milk, cement, and spare vehicle parts. Shahariyari and his front companies, Liner Transport Kish and Behnam Shahariyari Trading Company, were sanctioned in June 2011 for providing material support, including weapons, to Hezbollah on behalf of the IRGC.

# The International Imam Khomeini Airport

Opens with a short story that illustrates the control of the Revolutionary Guards at airports. The extent of the Revolutionary Guards’ control over the Iranian economy is -apparent as soon as you enter the country. They run the main international airport, and the manner in which they acquired it was a bruising demonstration of the way big business is now done in Iran. The contract for managing Imam Khomeini airport, south of Tehran, was given to a Turkish-Austrian consortium (Tepe-Akfen-Vie – TAV) in 2004, but on 8 May, the day it was supposed to open, guardsmen took it over, blocking the runways with their vehicles, and closing it down. Inbound flights had to be hastily diverted. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared that the involvementof foreigners posed a security risk because of an alleged link to Israel, but it was clear that the foreign consortium’s biggest mistake was to try to cut the IRGC out of its business model. This story illustrates the total control of the Revolutionary Guards’ armaments at airports. An agreement was signed for the operation of the airport with a foreign company. The company invested millions in equipment and training employees. The Revolutionary Guards understand the economic and operational value of airport management and therefore take over the runways and landings by force. The Revolutionary Guards officially explain that the control of a foreign company at the airport poses a security risk, especially since the company has relations with Israel. The explanation of a security risk will be used by the Revolutionary Guards later in the course of a tender for the acquisition of a large communications company, while preventing a company from claiming that it poses a security risk.

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Imam Khomeini International Airport as a hub for arms deliveries – An exclusive news arrives from Germany. The popular newspaper “Sueddeutsche Zeitung” published in July 2014 an article in which it reveals the existence of a special hangar in the Imam Khomeini International Airport of Tehran. Short-range missiles, mortar shells, anti-ship missiles: where did militant groups in the Middle East get their modern weapons? The airport in Iran’s capital Tehran is said to have become a hub for illegal deliveries.Imam Khomeini International Airport is Iran’s gateway to the world. About 30 kilometers southwest of the capital Tehran, start and land – despite sanctions and international isolation – quite a few foreign planes, freight and passenger jets of the state-owned Iran Air, the private Mahan Air and other domestic airlines. However, according to Western intelligence, the Revolutionary Guards have now developed the civilian airport into a hub for arms shipments – to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Shiite Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and other militant groups in the Middle East and the Arab world.

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Tehran as a hub for arms deliveries – For some months, the Quds Brigades, the elite unit of the Islamic Republic for operations abroad, have therefore taken over for this purpose a hangar in the cargo area in the east of the airport. Those coming from the city by taxi to the Khomeini Airport can catch a glimpse of the back of the inconspicuous, white-painted lightweight buildings with their red roofs. A block – shaped hangar, operated by Iran Air until about two years ago, is now to serve the IRGC as a logistics center and weapons depot, as a Western diplomat of the Süddeutsche Zeitung said that has access to intelligence information.

The Revolutionary Guards’ logistics storage center at the airport included missiles, shells, explosives and weapons of various kinds. These weapons were intended to reach Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza – into the hands of terrorist organizations. The contents of the storage center was discovered as a result of a malfunction caused the explosions and injuries. The editors of the German newspaper that published the research on the Revolutionary Guards’ storage center requested the response of the Iranian embassy in Berlin. The embassy denied the claim that arms shipments from the Khomeini airport in Tehran were being transferred to Syria.

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We bring here another satellite image from the Google Maps tool, the image was copied in January 2018

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In April 2017, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a report about another IRGC-controlled company – Qeshm Fars Air, which took delivery of two Boeing 747-200F vintage cargo planes from Afghanistan’s Kam Air using an Armenian intermediary. It is not clear if Afghan officials knew where the planes would end up.
The first of these planes, EP-FAA, was immediately pressed into daily flights between Tehran and Damascus (route numbers QFZ9950 and QFZ9951). In all, Iranian andSyrian airlines have hauled about 21,000 passengers between Tehran/Abadan and Damascus in the past two months alone (Feb – Mar 2017) , along with over 5,000 tons of supplies. Very few pilgrims travel to Syria these days, so most of these passengers were military or paramilitary personnel. Almost all of the flights in question are fully chartered by the IRGC and usually unavailable to the general public. It is worth noting that on the way to Syria, the Iranians use Iraqi airports, including the Najaf airport, which is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards.

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According to various sources detailed below, it is known that the Revolutionary Guards arrest people at the Tehran’s International airport when they come or leave Iran – The ability to stop people at the airport teaches who is in control of the field.

Here are some examples. Here are some testimonials:

Award-winning director Mohammad Rasoulof has revealed that he has been banned from making films in Iran and is not allowed to leave the country. “As soon as I arrived at Tehran’s international airport [on September 11, 2017], two individuals came to me at the passport checkpoint and took me to a room where they confiscated my passport and personal belongings,” Rasoulof told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on December 23, 2017. “From the start, it became clear that the gentlemen questioning me were from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Intelligence Organization. They told me I am charged with ‘assembly and collusion against national security’ and ‘propaganda against the state.

Karan Vafadari is an American-Iranian dual national belonging to the Zoroastrian faith. Karan attended Tehran’s prestigious Alborz High School and graduated from New York University (NYU) with a degree in electronic engineering and management. While his three children live in the U.S., Karan and his wife, Afarin Niasari, an architect, live in Tehran and manage their art gallery, Aun. Afarin Niasari was detained by IRGC agents at the Tehran airport in late July 2016 as she was about to board a flight to attend a family wedding abroad. The agents told her to call her husband Karan and ask him to come to the airport. When he arrived, he was also arrested and both were taken to Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.

“A British-Iranian woman who was arrested in Iran in April is accused of seeking to ‘overthrow the regime’, according to a statement from the IRGC.” Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, was arrested at Tehran airport on April 3 2016 as she prepared to return to Britain with her daughter after visiting family in Iran, her husband told AFP.

“A French-Iranian citizen who left Iran in 2009 after facing espionage charges has been sentenced to six years in jail following her return (March 2016) to the country to visit her critically ill mother, an opposition website reports.” Former French embassy employee Nazak Afshar, 58, was arrested last month on arrival at Tehran airport.

Reuters reported that from November 2015 to July 2016 – nine months, the Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least six dual-national Iranians, their friends and family members say, the highest number of Iranians with dual-nationality detained at one time in recent years to have been acknowledged. The government has confirmed most of the detentions, without giving details of anycharges. Analysts say the circumstances are often similar: arrest on arrival or departure from Tehran’s airport.

# Payam International Airport

Payam Airport (Persian: ‫ام‬ ‫ی‬ ‫پ‬ ‫فرودگاه‬ ) (IATA: PYK, ICAO: OIIP) is an international cargo airport located in Karaj, 40 kilometers (25 mi) from Tehran, in the Alborz Province of Iran. The airport was established in 1990 but was not opened officially until 1997. Payam Aviation Services Co. operate the Payam Airport as well Payam Airline, Payam Special Economic Zone and Postal hub in Payam. But all this is only de jure, de facto the situation is completely different.

In general, the IRGC is heavily involved in Iran’s underground economy. It leverages its control over Iran’s borders and airports into financial gain. Payam International Airport is one example – IRGC-operated this airport.
In theory, it is a post airport, but there is no customs control. In 2005, an Iranian newspaper disclosed that “two thousand tons of goods, mainly cosmetics, performance-enhancing medication [Viagra] and computer electronics” entered Iran on cargo carrier Payam Air, a company owned by the transportation ministry. There may be four smuggling flights each day and as many as twice that number on holidays. The subsequent trial ballooned into a public spectacle. It ended not with any accountability for senior leadership, but with a single street vendor being found guilty for masterminding the operation.

# Mehrabad airport

Tehran Mehrabad International Airport (Persian: ‫مهرآباد‬ ‫)فرودگاه‬ (IATA: THR, ICAO: OIII), is an airport that serves Tehran, Iran. Until 2007 Mehrabad Airport was the primary airport of Tehran in both international and domestic passenger traffic but has been replaced by the new Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport for all of its scheduled international traffic and now it is primary airport of Tehran in domestic flights. Mehrabad, however, is still by far the busiest airport in Iran in terms of passenger traffic and aircraft movements, handling 13,617,094 passengers in 2014. It is capable of handling wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 747. The airport is also the sole gateway used by the Government of Iran, a service provided by Meraj Airlines (subject to sanctions by the United States) out of VIP and CIP terminals.

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De jure Mehrabad airport owner is Iran Airports Company and the operator is Iran Civil Aviation Organization, but de facto it’s the IRGC.

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Based on Almezmaah studies and research center report from October 2016 – Yemeni military sources revealed that officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have smuggled weapons to the Houthi militias and the ousted Saleh across the Red Sea. The Iranian regime also used charities as a cover for smuggling weapons.
The Iranian Red Crescent has even become a part of the intelligence Revolutionary Guard divisions. Almezmaah studies and research center updated that reports confirmed that the terrorist Quds Force has transferred 50 tons of weaponry and logistical aid to the Houthis from Mehrabad airport near Tehran airport to Sana’a under the aid cover of the Iranian Red Crescent. The Almezmaah studies and research center report that meanwhile, deputy Yemeni Ambassador to Bahrain, Hasan Massoud Qahtan, has revealed that the Bahraini frigate was able to thwart 280 cases of an Iranian armssmuggling through Bab el Mandeb and Aden. A report released in 2007 by American Enterprise Institute mentions that Mohammad Ali Moshaffeq, an aide to former speaker of the parliament and 2005 presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi, said that “more than twenty-five entrance doors of Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran are publicly claimed to be outside customs control, and no measure has been taken to exert control.”

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According to a report by an Iranian military official belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that published during March 2017,by the anti-government “Amed News” site and were translated and published by the MEMRI institute which tracks media outlets in the Middle East, Iran, through the Revolutionary Guards, transfers military equipment by means of civilian flights to Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. The use of civilian flights requires the use of Iranian airports for takeoff or landings. Therefore, the detection or seizure of such equipment smuggled in aircraft indicates the use of Iranian airports. According to the report of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy which was published in April 2017 Iran Is Still Using Pseudo-Civilian Airlines to Resupply Assad – The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force has long used pseudo-civilian resources to help Iran’s allies in Syria.
In addition to close support from Mahan Air (The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Mahan Air three times since 2011 for allegedly shipping arms to the Syrian government, ferrying members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and providing transport for the Lebanese militia Hezbollah) , the IRGC has set up its own cover airlines and service companies to provide logistical assistance and boost revenue. The main airline operated by the IRGC and its Pars Aviation Company is Pouya Air. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy report from 2017 states that Pouya Air operates six Russian-made transport planes on loan from the IRGC Aerospace Force. The IRGC also purchased during 2012 two Brazilian-made Embraer ERJ-145ER regional jets (registration numbers EP-RAA and EP-RAD), which have a range of about 3,000 kilometers and can carry up to fifty passengers. Both jets were subsequently seen at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport still wearing South African registration and “Rey Airlines” livery. More important, having its own cargo and passenger fleet allows it to transport operatives or clandestine cargo with minimum observation by civil aviation authorities.

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The case of the Georgia-registered IL-76 impounded in Bangkok – On Saturday December 12, 2009, Thai authorities – acting on information received from the US intelligence and in concert with Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) – seized an aircraft at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport. The Ilyushin-76 (registered in Georgia as 4L-AWA) had stopped on December 11 in Bangkok apparently to refuel while en-route from Pyongyang Sunan (North Korea) to Gostomel (Ukraine). According to its flight plan, the aircraft was due to fly onwards to Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport (Iran). The plane, Thai authorities discovered, was carrying neither “spare parts for oil drilling equipment” (as stated in shipping documents prepared before the departure of the aircraft from Ukraine), nor “mechanical parts” (as stated in the airway bill prepared in North Korea for the return flight), but 35 tons of arms and ammunition:

# Abadan International Airport

The website Pakistan Forward published during March 2017 an article titled Mahan Air: the airline facilitating Iran-backed conflicts in the Middle East. The body of the article presents the following information “Salah Mansour, using a pseudonym out of concern for his safety, is related to a senior Hizbullah official and had been close to the party’s leadership in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley before splitting from the group. He told Al-Mashareq that Mahan Air, and state-owned carrier Iran Air before it, had been granted absolute freedom to operate in Syria, and that Syrian regime forces appear to have no authority over these airlines. “Vehicles carrying [military or militia] elements enter the airport’s campus directly without stopping for customs, passport or other checks,” he said. Mansour said he had traveled between Damascus and the airline’s hub in Iran, Abadan airport, on one occasion when he was a member of Hezbollah, and also had escorted convoys of Iranian fighters to and from the airport in Damascus.

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Another source is the Facebook account belong to warreports.org. In December 2016 (The post and photos were posted on December 3, 2016) they published the following post “Iraqi fighters are deployed to Syria at Abadan airport, It is used from Abadan airport as the center for assembling and deploying thousands of militant Iraqi forces affiliated with Iran to Syria. These Iraqi fighters, who play a major role in the deadly siege of Aleppo, are often driven by the Mahan Air to Damascus, and then from there to various parts of the conflict”. “The images below show the Iraqi warrior Kata’ib Imam Ali’s group at Abadan airport and then his presence in Syria. In the first photograph, the logo of the company, “Farsandishan Arvand”, is showing off the driver of Abadan Airport Airlines on the stairs”.

# Various occasions – without affiliation with a specific airport

The transfer of military equipment on Iranian planes requires the use of Iranian airports – According to various intelligence reports (A Western intelligence reports seen by Reuters in September 2013 – The sources citing these reports do not provide detailed information) Iran, through the Revolutionary Guards, transfers military equipment by means of civilian flights to Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. The use of civilian flights requires the use of Iranian airports for takeoff or landings. Therefore, the detection or seizure of such equipment smuggled in aircraft indicates the use of Iranian airports.

Here are some examples: