The IRGC’s Froglickers

 

The IRGC’s Froglickers

Frog poison! It’s been revealed that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s cause of death was epibatidine, an exotic poison derived from secretions of South American frogs.

Right-thinking human beings will be appalled by this awful method of political assassination. There’s one Iranian institution, unfortunately, whose response to the revelation of Navalny’s frog poisoning was less likely to have been disgust and more likely “hold my beer”.

That’s Imam Hossein University (IHU, or دانشگاه جامع امام حسین or دانشگاه امام حسین), the research and training institution belonging to none other than Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – the notorious IRGC. Murderers of protesters; imprisoners of unfortunate foreigners; torturers of dissidents; all round good guys and girls.

We’ve written before about IHU’s research on nuclear physics and advanced chemical weapons, noting how IHU serves as an alternative centre of WMD-related expertise to that of SPND, the main star in Iran’s constellation of research institutions of mass destruction. The Venn diagram of SPND and IHU’s work overlap on areas of common interest like removing contaminated soil from secret nuclear facilities, and revenue-raising by the manufacture of dubious COVID vaccines.

Today we’re going to expose the key individuals in IHU who are working on biological weapons. These scientists have devoted their careers to cultivating and understanding toxins and bacteria, both well-known (anthrax, ricin) and novel (you’ll see). And it’s not for benevolent reasons.

Poisons and venoms and germs, oh my

We’ve spent some time reviewing the research publications put out over the last decade by academics from IHU’s Faculty of Basic Sciences, which are freely available online – albeit with a little digging. Frankly, it’s a very alarming corpus of research.

The sheer number of pathogenic agents that are of interest at IHU is the first aspect that concerns us. In the table below, we’ve selected 12 of IHU’s most senior biologists and marked the pathogens that each has published work on. 

 

Anthrax

Botulinum

Cholera

E. Coli

Enterotoxins

Jellyfish toxin

Ricin

Salmonella

Scorpion toxin

Shiga

Snake toxin

Stonefish toxin

Seyed Mojtaba Aghaie

X

X

Firouz Ebrahimi

X

X

X

X

X

Abbas Hajizadeh

X

X

X

X

X

X

Ashkan Hajinourmohammadi

X

X

X

X

Hossein Honari

X

X

Mohammad Ebrahim Minaei

X

X

X

X

Shahram Nazarian

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Ahmad Karimi Rahjerdi

Amir Sajjad Hojjati Razgi

X

X

Mojtaba Saadati

X

Davoud Sadeghi

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Yousof Tarverizadeh

X

X

X

That’s quite the menu. On the upside – there’s not been any published work on frog toxins! We’re sure that whichever dissident dies an excruciating death from an IRGC-administered shot of stonefish venom will be relieved that no frogs were harmed in the course of their dispatch.

The second aspect that concerns us is that there is evidence of work on delivery systems for biological agents. Iran is clearly interested in biological agents for use as close-range assassination tools – no doubt inspired by the famous ricin umbrella or Hamas ear spray incidents. And thankfully, work on bio-assassination delivery methods can be conducted under the guise of developing vaccine delivery systems, such as nasal sprays. Here’s just one example of the many you can find by IHU authors.

The third aspect that concerns us is that these are just not smart guys. IHU’s research output is peppered with wacky papers like this look at the pros and cons of Datura, the hallucinogenic plant beloved by teenage stoners who can’t afford to buy weed. And it gets worse: here’s a publication that says the quiet part out loud, titled “The role of bioterrorism in changing the balance of power by assassinating individuals in governments”. Fucking geniuses like this shouldn’t be handling weapons-grade toxins and bacteria.

IHU FAQs

It’s a lot to take in, sure. And we know you have some questions.

But wait – surely this work is purely defensive in nature! Every country has the right to use scientific development to protect its citizens against medical afflictions caused by bacteria or toxins.

Ah yes, the famous humanitarian charitable organization that is the IRGC. One could accept that the work is indeed defensive in nature if you assume that the IRGC is a) working in good faith and b) has an interest in protecting Iran’s citizens. We’d posit that the IRGC’s murderous treatment of protestors in the recent demonstrations has been pretty effective at disproving that idea.

But wait! Surely IRGC scientists wouldn’t be stupid enough to publish their work on biological weapons on the internet.

They are, they did, and they’ll keep doing it. And this is just the unclassified research – imagine what work is being conducted that’s marked with a “secret” or “top secret” stamp.

But wait! IHU has an Ethics Committee! Surely they wouldn’t allow such dastardly things.

No joke, there really is an IHU Ethics Committee, as this paper refers to. We’ve managed to score a photo from one of its recent meetings:

Let’s hope they don't make the mistake of being in session should the bombs start falling on IHU. See you next time!