Marrakech – The European Union has designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization following Tehran’s brutal suppression of mass protests that killed thousands of demonstrators in recent weeks.
EU foreign ministers unanimously approved the decision Thursday during a meeting in Brussels. The move places the IRGC on the same level as jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
“Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise,” said EU High Representative Kaja Kallas. “Repression cannot go unanswered.”
The designation introduces asset freezes, funding prohibitions, and travel bans on IRGC members. However, the practical impact remains limited since many commanders already face EU sanctions.
France had previously opposed the terror listing over concerns about diplomatic ties with Iran. The country reversed course Wednesday after reports emerged detailing the scale of Iran’s violent crackdown.
“There can be no impunity for the crimes committed,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told reporters. He described it as “the most violent repression in Iran’s modern history.”
Italy and Spain also shifted positions to support the designation, enabling the required unanimous approval.
Human rights groups estimate the death toll from the December and January protests ranges from 6,301 confirmed deaths to potentially over 25,000 casualties. Iranian authorities acknowledge more than 3,100 deaths but claim most were security personnel killed by “rioters.”
The IRGC, established after the 1979 revolution, operates as Iran’s ideological military wing with approximately 190,000 personnel. The force controls major economic sectors and oversees Iran’s strategic weapons program.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the decision as “long overdue.” She wrote on social media that “‘terrorist’ is indeed how you call a regime that crushes its own people’s protests in blood.”
The United States, Canada, and Australia had already designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The EU’s move comes after sustained pressure from Germany and the Netherlands, which have pushed Brussels to adopt comparable measures at the bloc level.
The designation coincides with escalating US pressure on Iran. President Donald Trump announced a “massive armada” led by the USS Abraham Lincoln was moving toward Iran with “great power, enthusiasm, and purpose.”
Trump warned that “time was running out” for Iran to negotiate on its nuclear program. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded that the country’s armed forces stood “with their fingers on the trigger” to respond to any aggression.
The EU also imposed sanctions on 21 Iranian individuals and entities Thursday, including Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni and Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi Azad.
IRGC embeds in North Africa
These developments intersect with Morocco’s exposure of Iran’s proxy architecture, including the Polisario Front, an obsolete Cold War relic and Marxist-Leninist by design militia created in 1973 under Algeria’s Houari Boumediene and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi backing.
The group was initially engineered as a counterweight to Morocco’s monarchy, which radical regimes derided as an anomaly and anachronism in a revolutionary region, before mutating into a permanent instrument of regional sabotage, ideological militancy, and manufactured instability.
A devastating Washington Post report in April 2025 exposed how the Iranian-backed Hezbollah has systematically trained the notorious Polisario Front separatists to advance Tehran’s malicious agenda.
During the same month, the Hudson Institute published a damning analysis revealing the Polisario Front as a dangerous terrorist militia that operates as “a destabilizing militia” rather than a legitimate liberation movement.
The think tank’s comprehensive investigation by Zineb Riboua documented the separatist group’s extensive arms smuggling operations and its treacherous coordination with designated terrorist organizations, while “aligning itself with the strategic agendas of Iran, Russia, and China.”
Most alarmingly, the institute confirmed that the Polisario “receives drones from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) through transfers facilitated by the Algerian regime” and “smuggles arms to jihadist insurgencies that threaten American forces across the Sahel.”
US Republican Congressman Joe Wilson introduced the “Polisario Front Terrorist Designation Act” in June, explicitly targeting what he described as the Iran-backed separatist militia. The legislation details the group’s “documented history of ideological and operational ties with Iran” dating back to 1980, when Polisario fighters publicly displayed portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini.
The congressional bill establishes how Iran’s support has escalated from training to providing lethal hardware, including unmanned aerial vehicles. “Iran has gone from training to equipping the Polisario with drones,” declared Morocco’s UN Permanent Representative Omar Hilale in 2022, warning that the militant group was “destabilizing our region.”
The Hudson Institute’s investigation revealed the Polisario’s camps in Tindouf as “militarized enclaves” where the separatist front “enforces strict control” over approximately 90,000 people. The analysis laid bare systematic theft of humanitarian aid “to sustain its militias while residents suffer” and documented how the organization routinely violates UN ceasefire agreements.
Morocco severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2018 after presenting irrefutable evidence of Tehran’s military support for the Polisario Front.
Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita revealed at the time that Morocco provided “proven and precise facts: dates of visits by senior officers of Hezbollah in Algeria, dates and venues of meetings with Polisario officials, and a list of names of agents involved in these contacts.”
Read also: Should Moroccans Celebrate the Fall of Iran’s Theocratic Regime, Venezuela’s Maduro?
