Iran MPs wear IRGC uniforms in defiance of US

By Mohammad Kursun

TEHRAN (AA) - Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and MPs wore the uniform of the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on Tuesday in protest of a U.S. decision to designate the elite force a "terrorist group".

On Monday, the U.S. administration designated the IRGC as a "foreign terrorist group", in a move that marked the first time a government agency has been blacklisted as a terrorist body.

In response, Tehran formally blacklisted the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) as a “terrorist organization.”

Addressing a parliamentary session on Tuesday, Larijani decried the U.S. administration and military as "examples of international military and economic terror".

"The [U.S.] president [Donald Trump] acknowledged that his country has a role to play in the establishment and strengthening of Daesh, and Trump should not forget that the U.S. Secretary of State admitted that his country was behind the emergence of Daesh," he said.

Larijani said the IRGC had directed "the biggest blow to the terror threat in the region."

Iran’s powerful IRGC was initially established to serve as the vanguard of Iran's 1979 revolution. It currently enjoys more autonomy than the rest of the Iranian military, answering only to Iran's supreme leader.

The IRGC is also solely responsible for Iran's formidable ballistic missile program.