Instagram has blocked the accounts of the main commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards

Instagram accounts of several commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have been blocked, reported Tuesday the Tabnak information website. The platform said it had made its decision in accordance with recent US sanctions.

Tabnak, a site close to the Iranian conservatives, said that Instagram had blocked the accounts of the major general, Mohammad Ali Jafari, the major general, Mohammad Bagheriand the major general, Qbadem Soleimani, one of the most formidable men in the Middle East.

"The link you followed may be broken or the page may have been deleted," the text adds.

Consulted by the agency AFP, an Instagram spokesman said the platform was operating "under the restrictions imposed by US sanctions laws".

"We work with the relevant government authorities to ensure we meet our legal obligations, including those related to the recent designation of the IRGC, "said the spokesman.

The Iranian Minister of Telecommunications, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, published on Tuesday an enigmatic message that apparently makes reference to Instagram's decision.

"When you tear off a man's tongue, you do not prove that he's a liar, you only tell the world what he says, what he can say" he wrote on his Twitter account.

This decision on Instagram has had a significant impact on social networks. Many users have even noticed the fact that the social network has had it prove its own medicine to the diet, since in the country, the services of Facebook, Twitter and Telegram are officially banned by the Persian authorities.

Instagram, meanwhile, is the only social network service accessible without using a virtual private network to bypbad censorship.

What is the revolutionary guard?

The body of Revolutionary Guards of Iran (CGRI) appeared in 1979 after the Islamic revolution that deposed the Persian chah and established the current theocratic regime led by the ayatollahs.

Also known as pasdaran ("guardians" in Farsi), this paramilitary force would be a branch of the Iranian armed forces tasked with precisely protecting the theocratic regime and the Islamic Republic, in contrast to the more traditional role of protecting the country's borders. ;army. , navy and air force.

It is estimated that there are currently about 120,000 members in land, naval and air units.and the Qods Force, which is its foreign operations division. In addition, he controls the Basij militias, which have 90,000 additional members.

CGRI members fought as paramilitary units during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988; in the civil war in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 and during the Israeli invasion of 2006; and more recently in the civil wars in Syria and Iraq.

More specifically in the Syrian conflict that began in 2011, they became one of the main allies of the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and one of the reasons he did not fall.

The Quds Force supports and leads Hezbollah terrorist groups in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, as well as Houthi militias in Yemen and various Shiite groups in Syria and Afghanistan.