Iran is making sweeping changes to its security apparatus in an effort to consolidate the power of the elite Revolutionary Guard, an exiled Iranian opposition group said on Thursday.

The Paris-based National Council of Resistance (NCRI) has frequently made accusations about Iran's "covert" activities, based on what it says is information from sources inside the country.

The new organisation, responsible for intelligence and security, is an off-shoot of the Revolutionary Guards and will report directly to the supreme leader's office, according to the NCRI.

"Although the mullahs have made public declarations about the new organisation, they have nonetheless concealed its real dimension and true nature," Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the NCRI, told a news conference in Brussels.

"Its command structure is linked directly to Khamenei. Its formation marks an unprecedented transformation for the regime's intelligence and suppressive apparatus," she said, saying the information had come from reports and sources in Iran.

She said the guard's intelligence agency will incorporate seven existing security organizations. These include sections of the Internal Security Directorate and Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the Security Directorate of the Basij force, anti-riot forces and the main security headquarters for Tehran, Rajavi said.

"The objective is to centralize the intelligence and security organs in a way that makes the new organization dominant and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security subservient," she said. "The new organization will be directly controlled by Khamenei (and) will not be dependent on the president or the Majlis (parliament)."

The shift is the largest overhaul of the intelligence structure since 1989, when Iran's first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died, the NCRI believes.

Rajavi said work on the new body had been completed last month.

Rajavi also accused Iran of developing a "nuclear weapon".

Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed at generating electricity, rejecting Western accusations it is seeking to develop nuclear bombs.

Iranian officials have yet to comment on reports of a revamped intelligence organisation.

Iranian media reported last month that the former head of the Basij militia, Hossein Taeb, had been transferred to the Guards. Ebtekar newspaper said he had had previous experience in intelligence but did not disclose his new position.

The organisation, called the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, took shape in June, soon after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in a vote.

While the NCRI is classified as a terrorist organisation in the United States, but it operates freely in Europe.


Agencies