Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Ground Force Commandos
The European Union this week declared the Iranian paramilitary force a terrorist organization. The classification comes in response to his role in the brutal suppression of demonstrations across Iran earlier this month.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful paramilitary force that answers only to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneibecame a formidable entity within the country’s theocracy.
The Iranian militia, which controls the country’s ballistic missile arsenal and has been linked to attacks abroad, emerged from the 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force overseen by Shiite clerics aimed at protect the country’s governmentand later enshrined in its constitution.
The Revolutionary Guard operates in parallel with the armed forces regulars from Iran, and its prominence and power grew up during the long and ruinous war with Iraq in the 1980s.
Although he faced possible dissolution after the war, Khamenei would eventually grant him powers to expand to the private sectorwhich allowed the force to prosper, recalls .
The Guard now manages a huge construction companycalled Khatam al-Anbia, and has companies that build roads, manage portsoperate telecommunications networks and even theoffer laser eye surgery.
Operations abroad
A Force Qudsan expeditionary unit of the Guard, was instrumental in creating what Iran describes as its “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the U.S. Supported former Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and other groups in the region, gaining power in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
According to US officials cited by The Independent, the Guard taught Iraqi militants how to make and use especially deadly bombs against US troops there. The Quds Force, as well as Iranian intelligence agencies, are believed to have hired criminal gangs to attack dissidents and enemies of Iran abroad.
After the most recent war between Israel and HamasIsrael arrested several citizens on charges of receive orders from Iran to surveil targets or commit acts of vandalism. Iran has denied being involved in these plans.
The Guard also operates your own information servicesand has been behind a series of arrests and convictions of citizens with dual nationality and people with links to the West due to accusations of espionage.
The ruling theocracy in Iran has also crushed the protests on the streets of Tehran through the Basij, the all-volunteer arm of the Guard. Videos of the demonstrations that began on December 28 show Basij members holding rifles, batons and revolvers. His strength was seen beating protesters and chasing them through the streets.
A well-known Basij commander even appeared on state television warn parents to keep their children at homewhile also calling on members of the force to come together to suppress the demonstrations.
On Thursday, European Union foreign ministers unanimously decided to include Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the list of terrorist organizations.
On the same day, the head of EU diplomacy, Kaja Kallaexplained that this classification places the Iranian regime “on the same levelr” than Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic State group.
According to , the decision follows that of the Iranian regime against demonstrators protesting against the government — which will have provoked the death of 30 thousand people in two days.
