An Iranian general said that his country’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), will be in the United States and Europe “very soon,” the Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday, citing Iranian media.

“The whole world should know that the IRGC will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” Salar Abnoush, deputy coordinator of the Khatam-al-Anbia, an IRGC command front, told the semi-official Tasnim News Agency. The Iranian operatives are reportedly being sent out on orders from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“The IRGC is [the] strong guardian of the Islamic Republic,” Abnoush added. “The Fedayeen of Velayat [fighting force] are under the order of Iran’s Supreme leader. Defending and protecting the Velayat [the Supreme Leader] has no border and limit.”

Saeed Ghasseminejad, an associate fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), observed that the threat of Iranian infiltration should not be taken lightly. “If we look at Iran’s previous terror attacks and assassination campaign around the world, such a statement is alarming,” he said. “The Islamic Republic has killed hundreds of Iranians and non-Iranians around the world in a coordinated campaign of terror. Iran may decide to restart the project now that many western companies are going to Iran and Iran feels its action in Europe may not be punished strongly.”

The Wall Street Journal reported in August that the IRGC and Khamenei were the main beneficiaries of last year’s nuclear deal, confirming the predictions of a number of experts.

Ghasseminejad and Emanuele Ottolenghi, also a fellow at FDD, warned last May that the groups most likely to be strengthened by the nuclear deal were businesses controlled by Khamenei and the IRGC. Lee Smith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, similarly predicted last July that the IRGC will strengthen its hold over Iran as a result of the deal.

Abnoush’s threat comes in the wake of congressional warnings that not enough is being done to counter growing cooperation between Iran and Cuba, which Ottolenghi cautioned are meant to establish a “vanguard of its Islamic revolution in America’s own backyard.”

[Photo: Fars News ]