Iran’s Elite Defense Force Finds New Funding Sources as Tension Rises with U.S. by Benoit Faucon and Sune Engel Rasmussen – Wall Street Journal
The country’s top paramilitary force is maintaining support for armed groups in the Middle East and finding new sources of funding, defying U.S. efforts to curb its activities abroad as tensions between Washington and Tehran soar following fresh attacks in the Gulf of Oman.
Iran’s government has struggled to support an economy under pressure from U.S. sanctions, but its elite defense force has found new sources of revenue, including recently-signed infrastructure contracts in Syria and Iraq as well as expanded smuggling networks, according to advisers to the Guard and the U.S. government.
The clout of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a group founded to protect the nation’s security but which has expanded to include construction, banking and smuggling, appears to be growing in Iran as it helps to prop up the economy and keeps more powerful adversaries off balance…