Terror linked Iran karate team visa denied, will not compete in World Games in Alabama

Editor’s Note: This piece in Fox News features discussion from an interview with Center Senior Analyst and Director for State Outreach, Christopher Holton.

JERUSALEM, Israel – The Iranian national karate team was denied a visa to enter the U.S. for The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama Fox News Digital can reveal.

Iran’s karate team has direct links to the terrorist organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC,) and opponents of the regime called for an immediate ban.

After Fox News Digital sent queries to the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security Sunday, an Iranian regime-controlled media outlet, the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) reported on Tuesday that the American government denied visas to the karate team.

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Christopher Holton, director of the State Outreach Center for Security Policy, told Fox News Digital, “It almost goes without saying that members of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should not be granted entry into the United States.

“First and foremost, the IRGC has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department. Among other activities, the IRGC is the wing of the Iranian jihad apparatus tasked with supporting, supplying and training other jihadist terror organizations around the world,” he said.

Holton said the threat of Iranian terrorism is ever-present because the regime seeks to retaliate against the U.S. for killing the US- and EU-designated terrorist. “Since the U.S. justifiably took out IRGC General Qassam Soleimani in an airstrike during the Trump administration, the IRGC and Iranian leaders have issued repeated threats of revenge,” he said.

Then-President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020.

Holton said, “The IRGC is especially a threat to American security in that they were active during the U.S involvement in Iraq in supplying jihadists with Explosively Formed Penetrator [EFP] improvised explosive devices that killed and wounded hundreds of U.S. military forces.”

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