After Iranian missiles were found to have reached terrorists and militias in Libya, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council: “Based on the Secretariat's analysis of the photographs provided, the Secretariat established that one of the four anti-tank guided missiles had characteristics consistent with the Iranian-produced Dehlavieh.”
The presence of these Iranian missiles and weapons, which the Libyan army had already expressed reservations about, confirms Iran’s support for the Brotherhood’s militia in Libya and is a clear violation of the international arms embargo in Libya. The long-range M302 missiles found on the battlefield of the Government of National Accord-aligned Brotherhood’s militias are extremely destructive missiles with a range of over 150 km, exactly like the Zelzal- 3 (earthquake) missiles possessed by the Houthis in Yemen. This is the scale of the military support Iran provides to the Brotherhood’s militias, and it stems from the closeness between Brotherhood and the Iranian regime since the 1979 "Khomeinist revolution".
Before the Brotherhood’s militias possession of these missiles was exposed, an Iranian ship listed on the US and European sanctions regulations, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard ship owned by IRSL, had been seized in the port of Misrata, affirming the Iranian regime's implication in supporting terrorism, chaos, and militias in Libya and that the Iranian regime is a destabilizing force in the region.
Iran did not stop at sending missiles to the Houthis in Yemen, nor did it rule out targeting the Holy City of Makkah. Indeed, they have reached a great many countries and places, like Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Today some were discovered and exposed in Libya.
Iran has been intervening in Libya was since February 2011, when a group was arrested after trying to spread the doctrine of the "Khomeini revolution" in Libya and persuade Libyans to follow the Vilayet al-Faqih (Governance of the Jurists- Iran’s political system), exploiting their ties with the Brotherhood to do so, though this doctrine clashes with Libyan’s devotion the moderate Maliki madhab (one of the four Sunni Islamic schools of thought) prevalent in the country. The attempts to spread Khomeini fever thus did not strike a chord in Libya, even among followers of the Ibadi madhab.
Iran's attempts to carve a foothold in Libya have always run up against Libyan society’s doctrinal divergences with the Iranian regime, especially the former’s ties to the old regime despite Khomeini and Gaddafi’s contest over leadership of the Islamic world. It is not only Gaddafi’s call for the establishment of a second Fatimid Caliphate that brought Khomeini’s Iran together with Gaddafi’s Libya. Rather, the latter stood behind the Iranian regime during the Iran- Iraq War. Despite this very cautious rapprochement, however, Gaddafi was still unable to visit Iran because of his fears regarding the Shiite cleric Musa al-Sadr’s disappearance a year after the Khomeini revolution and the claim that Sadr had disappeared in Libya despite confirmation that he had traveled and his clothes and passport being in a hotel in Rome. Some accuse the Iranian regime of being behind his disappearance in Libya because Khomeini, who had been in dispute with Sadr, was the major beneficiary.
The Iranian regime has often hidden behind Libya, wiping the blood of the regime's victims with its cloth. Perhaps the Lockerbie bombing, which the Iranian regime is accused of being implicated in and was a beneficiary of, is a clear example.
The Iranian regime, in partnership with the Brotherhood, is trying to export a version of Vilayet al-Faqih and obedience to the Supreme Leader to Libya although Libya is Sunni. The Iranian regime is still reminiscing about the Fatimids who entered Egypt through Libya and for whom Gaddafi once sang praises, declaring the Fatimid Caliphate in a political maneuver that Iran thought was sectarian.
Libya will only ever be Arab Libya, it will never be Persian, Khomeinist, or even Fatimid, nor will it come under the Brotherhood’s control. The Iranian regime is merely exporting its internal issues, taking them as far as Libya, an African country thousands of miles away.
