Canada added Iran's Quds Force to a list of terrorist groups on Thursday, saying the elite special operations unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had been arming the Taliban, Hamas and others. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the Quds Force was responsible for "exporting the Iranian Revolution through activities such as facilitating terrorist operations."

He accused it of providing "arms, funding and paramilitary training to extremist groups, including the Taliban, Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command." The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards told a news conference in Tehran in September that members of the Quds Force were present in Syria and Lebanon but insisted they were only there to provide "counsel." Canada lists 43 entities as terrorist groups. On Wednesday, it announced it would remove Iran's Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) from its list after similar moves by both the United States and the European Union.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012