What Is Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) (X image@@SabiasQueVlog)
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) of Iran has grabbed the centre stage in West Asia again. With the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh while he was at Tehran, the enemies ‘embarrassed’ the country. Hamas, the resistance group of Gaza, and Iran accused Israel of the “heinous attack”. Iran’s top leadership promised “harsh revenge” against Israel.
In its report, New York Times said that Haniyeh was assassinated from a bomb that was a exploded within the guesthouse he was staying, and not from an assumed air strike. The report said, the bomb was hidden approximately two months prior. The guesthouse the Hamas chief was staying was run and protected by the IRGC.
All eyes are on the group, anticipating how and when it will level scores with Israel.
IRGC, is charged with the responsibility of defending the Islamic Republic of Iran against internal and external threats. The group also plays a key role in executing Iran’s foreign policy and wields control over vast segments of the country’s economy. Answering directly to the Supreme Leader of Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, IRGC is also influential in domestic politics, and many senior officials have passed through its ranks.
Also Read: American Media House’s Explosive Claim On How Ismail Haniyeh Was Assassinated
Since the beginning of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, IRGC has been at the front row, defending Hamas and fighting Israel through its regional partners named as “axis of resistance”. It includes Yemen’s Houthis, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and the Bashar al-Assad government of Syria. IRGC even strike Israel directly for the first time, adding fuel to the burning fear of wider conflagration of the war in the region.
Establishment:
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was founded in 1979, as an immediate aftermath of the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, when the leftists, nationalists, and Islamists scrambled to shape the revolutionary republic of Iran. While Prime Minister and President controlled the government and state institutions like army, IRGC operated beyond the bounds of law and the judiciary, and was only answerable to the Supreme power, Khamenei, of the country.
The group is conceived as a “people’s army,” helping consolidate the revolution as Khomeini instituted a state based on the concept of velayat-e faqih, or guardianship of the jurist. With the establishment of IRGC, Khamenei is looking to prevent coup, like the one in 1953, that ousted the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq and restored the shah to power.
According to International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), IRGC have over 190,000 troops under its command. Its branches include,
- ground forces that is based across Iran’s 31 provinces and Tehran, with more than 150,000 troops,
- the Basij paramilitary force, which claims to have some six hundred thousand volunteers,
- naval forces, separate from the naval branch of Iran’s regular military, which have some twenty thousand sailors. They patrol Iran’s maritime borders, including the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-third of the world’s seaborne crude oil passes each year;
- an air force of fifteen thousand personnel, also separate from a parallel branch of the regular military, which runs Iran’s ballistic missile program
- a cyber command, which works with IRGC-affiliated businesses on military and commercial espionage, as well as propaganda distribution, according to IISS
The first time IRCG deployed forces abroad was reported to be during the Iran-Iraq war. The group then developed ties with armed groups from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and elsewhere, providing them with training, weapons, money, and military advice as a means of projecting Iran’s power abroad. The expeditionary Quds Force emerged as the IRGC’s de facto external affairs branch.
Also Read: Avenging Ismail Haniyeh’s Death Is Tehran’s Duty: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
The IRGC’s involvement in Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003 has marked the visible tension between Tehran and Washington. In 2007, US designated Quds Force as a terrorist organization for providing material support to U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, prohibiting transactions between the group and U.S. citizens, and freezing any assets under United States jurisdiction.
On 15 April 2019, the United States designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization, and the designation is still in force. Washington has imposed several other sanctions on IRGC.
The group started to flex after the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel. experts believe that Tehran was likely aware of the attack that it had facilitated through decades of support for the Palestinian resistance group. IRGC has also provided arms and other assistance to help its partners in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen to attack Israeli targets in solidarity with Hamas.
(With inputs from Council On Foreign Relations)
