The supreme leader of the Islamic regime of Iran, Ali Khamenei, travels to various parts of Iran as a part of his annual vacation. These trips are carried out secretly. The city of Mashhad, his hometown, is the most important destination for his vacations. Except for the years 2020 and 2021, Ali Khamenei has visited Mashhad twice a year in the previous and subsequent years, the first trip usually is for one week in the middle of March, and the second trip for two weeks every August or September.
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Since the beginning of his rule, the state media of the Iranian regime has always attempted to show that Khamenei, as his nickname, says, "The leader of the world's oppressed and poor' has a simple lifestyle, and for this reason, a massive effort has been made to keep the details of his trips to Mashhad and other cities a secret. Those military forces who have been present or witnessed expensive measures to ensure Khamenei's security during his trips to Mashhad have realized more than anyone the hypocrisy of this autocratic leader and the lies made about his simple life.
In this report, we reveal the details of the expensive and luxurious vacations of Ali Khamenei in Mashhad thanks to the information obtained with the help of hundreds of satellite images taken over the last 15 years, as well as the observations of former military personnel.
How does Khamenei travel to Mashhad?
In the past years, about half of Khamenei's trips to the city of Mashhad have been kept secret. The details of his travels are mostly revealed in the spring.
The predictability of his trips to Mashhad in March led to the fact that the Vali-Amr Corps, one of the subgroups of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is responsible for protecting Khamenei, often uses passenger aircraft for Khamenei's trips to Mashhad while his VIP aircraft often fly to Mashhad without him onboard.
In recent years, Ali Khamenei has used Iran's largest government-owned VIP aircraft, an Airbus A340-313 with an EP-IGA registration code, for his trips to Mashhad. But if he and his companions travel with a passenger plane among ordinary passengers, this plane will be sent to Mashhad city empty. Usually, two state media journalists accompany Khamenei and his 20 bodyguards on passenger aircraft. Their mission is to film Khamenei among passengers and publish the in-state media for propaganda purposes.
But this is not the only part of the story, more than 1,400 members of the Vali-Amr Corps are sent to Mashhad before and during Khamenei's arrival. The process of transporting them to Mashhad is carried out using several Il-76TD and An-74TK-200 transport aircraft of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force (IRGCASF). Usually, on the day of Khamenei's visit, several IRGC Generals, including Hasan Mashroui-Far, the current commander of the Vali-Amr Corps travel to Mashhad using one of IRGCASF's VIP jets to directly witness and observe the operation for guarding Khamenei.
To transport Ali Khamenei and his bodyguards from their place of residence in the center of Tehran to Mehrabad Airport in the west of the city, to board the plane to travel to Mashhad, five VIP helicopters of the Air Force consisting of two Bell 412s and three Bell 212s have always been used. Two Bell 412s are used to transport Khamenei, one is empty and one is carrying him, and the three Bell 212 aircraft carry his additional bodyguards. These helicopters land at the former barracks on the southwestern side of Hor Square, located 700 meters from Khamenei's residence in Tehran. After a five minutes flight to Mehrabad airport, they land next to the VIP Pavilion of the government where he is boarding a VIP jet or being transported to one of the passenger terminals to board passenger aircraft.
After being transferred to Mashhad, Ali Khamenei is sent to Malek Abad Palace, eight kilometers from the airport, using armored minibusses. During his movement on the ground in the city of Mashhad, two Air Force fighter jets usually perform combat air patrol (CAP). Similar measures are taken to return him to Tehran, with the difference that he always uses a VIP aircraft, the EP-IGA, or an Airbus A321-231 narrowbody VIP jet with EP-IGD civil registration code.
Protection of Khamenei's residence in Malek Abad Palace
In the years before the revolution, Malek Abad Palace was the residence of the last Shah of Iran and foreign guests and diplomats during their trips to the city. After the revolution, by order of the authorities of the Islamic regime, this palace was handed over to the Astan Quds Razavi Foundation under the supervision of Ayatollah Abbas Vaez-Tabasi (who died in 2016), a close friend of Ali Khamenei, and sometime later it was turned into a museum. But it didn't take long until Khamenei began using the palace during his vacation in Mashhad.
The Vali-Amr Corps of IRGC forms the closest and major security circle of Khamenei's bodyguards, they are the only ones who are present inside the palace grounds. In the next ring, respectively, the IRGC Aerospace Force uses short-range missile defense systems, the Iranian Air Defense Force uses medium and long-range missile defense systems along with anti-aircraft guns, and finally, the Air Force by means of F-5E Tiger II and F-4E Phantom II fighter jets protect Khamenei.
The Air Force normally has eight F-5E and F fighter jets based in Mashhad in order to carry out two tasks, air defense and also protection of borders against Taliban attacks, but their inability to fly at night makes it necessary to protect Khamenei by means of other fighter jets. Subsequently, four F-4E Phantom II aircraft are usually sent to Mashhad from the 9th Tactical Fighter Base in Bandar Abbas along with eight pilots to fly them.
The Air Defense Force of the Army, which permanently has two battalions of MIM-23B I-HAWK medium-range missile defense systems at Mashhad Airport in order to protect the city, deploys one battalion of S-300PMU-2 systems from Tehran to Mashhad to protect Khamenei from the threat of airstrikes, missile and drone strikes.
What do the Air Force personnel say about Khamenei's trips to Mashhad?
Intelligence protection of the Iranian Air Force is responsible to carry out a thorough investigation of each one of the Air Force personnel particularly fighter pilots before their assignment and deployment to Mashhad in order to protect Khamenei. Covert intelligence officers in fighter squadrons who are members of the Intelligence Protection Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army spy on their colleagues ahead of the selection process and in case of finding any sign of their negative political view towards the regime or Khamenei, they report it to the Intelligence Protection.
Those pilots who are cleared for these missions spend all of their time in Mashhad in complete isolation in the Quick Reaction Alert facility or in the hotel located within premises of IRIAF's forward operating base in Northwest of Mashhad airport without access to phone, internet, etc. during the whole deployment time which lasts from one to two weeks. In the past, Khamenei's office was awarding these pilots by paying them a gold coin to each but according to some pilots who have been aware of the details of these rewards in August 2022 it has now been reduced to gift cards valuing $100 to $150.
An F-5E fighter pilot of the Iranian Air Force who for several years served in Mashhad and flew such missions told the author: "Our F-5Es in Mashhad can fly air defense missions from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. After that, we can't do anything due to the short range of our radar. This is why the Air Force always deployed four F-4Es to Mashhad to protect Khamenei. The F-4E is an all-weather fighter capable of performing ground-controlled interception (GCI) at night and I heard they have upgraded radars of some of them while our F-5Es are mostly non-upgraded using the same radar that was installed on them in the-1970's when they were delivered".
A former F-4E fighter pilot who once served in the 91st Tactical Fighter Squadron in Bandar Abbas told the author about these missions and the security measures for the selection of the pilots: "During the years of my service in Bandar Abbas, I saw how restrictive was the process of selection of pilots for deployment to Mashhad to protect Ali Khamenei. We had a back-seat pilot whose uncle, an F-14A veteran pilot, was living in the United States, but because of that and also because his family was not religious, they [Intelligence Protection] never allowed him to become the front-seat pilot of F-4E and they also never selected him for such missions in Mashhad because they couldn't trust him. Sometimes, out of the 25 or 26 pilots in our squadron, less than six had clearance to do such missions forcing the Air Force to use two other F-4E pilots from 3rd or 6th Tactical Fighter Base [Also operators of F-4E] to fill the gap.
"What was disturbing for me and my colleagues as a military officer and pilot was not only the financial costs but also the security costs of Khamenei's trips, especially to the city of Mashhad. To save his life, he used our limited resources and put a lot of burden on us. During the years of my service, less than half of our Squadron's F-4Es had full mission capability, and when they were deploying four of them to Mashhad, we subsequently had less ability to protect the airspace and maritime territory of southern Iran when we had two or three left. The same situation now exists in a different form, I heard that by sending one of the two S-300 SAM systems based in Tehran to Mashhad to protect Khamenei, the capital's air defense capacity against air attack will be reduced by 20 to 30%. To save the life of one person, himself, he risks the safety of millions of people."
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