Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) is a ministry only in name, for it operates under the direct supervision of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is not accountable to either the cabinet or the parliament, has a secret budget, and stands above the law. Over the past two decades, it has grown into a huge machinery of political repression.

The Iranian regime’s use of terrorism as an adjunct to foreign policy has developed into an organised and professional activity over the last 25 years masterminded by the MOIS. It has been used as a lever to gain advantages from Western countries or to exert more pressure on surviving opponents of the regime. Many of Iran’s diplomats have a record of previous service with the MOIS, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. (IRGC), and other security agencies. The MOIS works in coordination with the Foreign Ministry in operations carried out abroad, making particular use of Iranian embassies worldwide as hubs for gathering intelligence and diplomatic passes for agents involved in terrorist activities. 

Internally, agents of the MOIS are rigorously tested before they are given security clearance and trusted enough to take part in operations which could potentially implicate the highest levels of the regime’s leadership to state corruption should someone decide to expose the agency. Many of the members, who themselves were handpicked from other security agencies inside the country, are first required to take part in the killing and torturing of dissidents, to ensure their loyalty to the regime and its Supreme Leader. Only the most loyal cadres are inducted into the organisation.

Throughout the years, on a number of occasions, the MOIS has gone through “internal purges”, whereby agents showing weakness conveniently “disappeared” or “committed suicide”. From 1997 to 1998, after a series of gruesome murders of Iranian dissidents by MOIS “liquidators” became public, the then-deputy Intelligence Minister Saeed Emami was jailed on conspicuous charges, and later “committed suicide” in prison. The regime thus prevented any leak of sensitive information about the MOIS operations, as this would have compromised the entire leadership of the Islamic Republic. Such internal purges and murders within the MOIS sparked a feud at the highest levels of the agency, which landed top officials from the loosing side in prison.