Military of Iran

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Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Armed Forces Branches
Air Force Army Navy IRGC Ground Forces Navy Air Force Quds Force Basij
Leadership
Commander-in-chief: Âyatollâh Ali Khamenei President: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Minister of Defense: Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar
Military Ranks
Air Force Ranks Insignia Army Ranks Insignia Navy Ranks Insignia IRGC Ranks Insignia
Components
Defense Industries Organization Iran Aviation Industries Organization Iran Electronics Industries (IEI)
Military History
Military history of Iran Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran Dhofar Rebellion Siege of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs Iran-Iraq War Operation Praying Mantis Operation Prime Chance
Military Expenditures
Dollars: $6.3 billion (2005) Percent of GDP: 3.5% (2005)
Military Manpower
Active troops: 545,000 (8th) Total troops: 12,285,000 (1st)

The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: نيروهای مسلح جمهوری اسلامی ايران) include the IRIA (Persian: ارتش جمهوری اسلامی ایران) , the IRGC (Persian: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی), and the Police Force^[1] (Persian: نيروی انتظامی جمهوری اسلامی ایران).

These forces total about 545,000 active personnel.^[2] Both fall under the commands of the Ministry's of Defense & Armed Forces Logistics.^[3]

The Islamic Republic of Iran Army consists of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army, Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. The regular armed forces have an estimated 420,000 personnel: the Islamic Republic of Iran Army, 350,000 personnel; the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, 18,000 personnel; and the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, 52,000 airmen.^[4]

The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, or Revolutionary Guards, has an estimated 125,000 personnel in five branches: Its own Navy, Air Force, and Ground Forces; the Quds Force (Special Forces), and the Basij (militia).^[5]

The Basij is a paramilitary volunteer force controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards; it includes about 90,000 full-time, active-duty uniformed Basij members, up to 300,000 reservists, and a further 11 million men and women who could be mobilized.^[6]

Iran's Armed Forces capabilities are kept largely secret. In recent years, official announcements have highlighted the development of weapons such as the Fajr-3 (MIRV), Hoot, Kowsar, Fateh-110, Shahab-3 missile systems and a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles, at least one of which Israel claims has been used to spy on Israel. ^[7] In 2006, Iran spied on the American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan for 25 minutes without being detected before returning safely to its base.^[8]^[9]^[10] Some western nations have alleged that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. ^[11] The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, in its February 2006 report on Iran's nuclear program, said it had no evidence of this. Recently, the United States of America released an intelligence report that the Islamic Republic of Iran has no running nucear program.^[12] ^[13]

Iran's military was called the Middle East's most powerful by General John Abizaid chief of United States Central Command (U.S. forces' commander in the region). Under pressure, Abizaid later modified his comments and said he did not count Israel Defense Forces, because it does not fall in his area of operations. ^[14]

1 History
2 Leadership
3 Budget
4 Combat history and operations
5 Chemical weapons
6 Defense industry
- 6.1 November 2006 missile test
7 References
8 See also
9 External links

See main article: Military history of Iran

With thousands of years of recorded history, and due to an unchanging geographic (and subsequently geopolitical) condition , Iran (previously known as Persia in the West until 1935) has had a long, varied, and checkered military culture and history, ranging from triumphant and unchallenged ancient military supremacy affording effective superpower status in its day, to a series of near catastrophic defeats (beginning with the destruction of Elam) at the hand of previously subdued peripheral nations (including Greece, Arabia, and the Asiatic nomadic tribes at the Eastern boundary of the lands traditionally home to the Iranian people).

In its time, Iran has rapidly dispatched ancient powers such as Babylon; its kings have sat enthroned as Pharaoh in Egypt; repeatedly held off, sometimes defeated, the otherwise successful armies of Rome (most memorably recording the submissive demeanor of a captured Roman Caesar); and apparently affected even a presumably hostile Greek historian to dedicate an entire book considering in detail the pseudo-military culture of the ancient Persians of Shahanshah Darius the Great.

Iranian military actions and martial culture have also left Iran with a rich legacy of contributions to military arts, weapons, tactics, strategy, and conduct of the mankind. The word navy is a term derived from Persian Naavs (ships) of Achaemenid military expeditions against ancient Greece. Those very same expeditions entailed crossings of entire armies from Asia to Europe over military bridges constructed by extending a floating platform of ships from the Asian land mass to Europe.

One of the earliest and most effective manifestations of light cavalry equipped with stand-off weapons were the bow and arrow equipped Parthian Cavalry.

The first Knights (in the sense of Warrior-Priests,) complete with shinning armor and plumed helmets were Sassanid Iranian nobles, and European heraldry is directly traceable to the Iranian Knights and overall culture of (lone) heroes and mythic figures such as Rostam, Zal, Bahram, etc.

And it was the sovereign head of the Iranian Army that marched un-opposed into Babylon that decreed the first codec of the rights of conquered people and nations.

And this is the same country that suffered completely unexpected and decisive defeats at the hands of Alexander the Great, and later Muslim Arabs, seemingly at the height of its might. And later on felt the full force of the brutally violent and destructive West-ward Mongol tribes.

One of Iran's 6 Kilo class submarines

Iran has 29 advanced Tor-M1 mobile air defense systems.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces)
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Rear Admiral Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar (Minister of Defense)
Major General Hasan Firuzabadi (Head of the Armed Forces General Command Headquarters)
Military
- Major General Ataollah Salehi (General Commander of the Military)
- Brigadier General Abdolrahim Mousavi (Chief of the Joint Staff of the Military)
- Brigadier General Mohammad-Hossein Dadress (Commander of the Army)
- Brigadier General Karim Ghavami (Commander of the Air Force)
- Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari (Commander of the Navy)
IRGC
- Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari (Commander-in-Chief of the Commander of the Revolutionary Guards)
Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi (Chief of the Joint Staff of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards)^[15]
Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi (Revolutionary Guards' Ground Forces)^[16]
Brigadier General Hossein Salami (Revolutionary Guards' Air Force)^[16]
Rear Admiral Morteza Saffari (Revolutionary Guards' Navy)^[17]
Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi (Commander-in-chief of the Mobilized Basij forces)^[18]
Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani (Quds Force)^[19]
Brigadier General Abdol-Ali Najafi (Secret unit)^[20]

Islamic Republic Police
- Brigadier General Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moghaddam (Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran Police)

The United States delivered 79 F-14 Tomcat fighter jets to Iran before 1979.

Iran's 2005 defense budget was estimated to be $6.3 billion by London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. This was $91 per capita, a lower figure than other Persian Gulf nations, and lower as a percentage of gross national product than all other Gulf states except the United Arab Emirates.^[21]

Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran (1941).
Dhofar Rebellion (1962-1975). 1500 Iranian troops supported the Sultan of Oman against an insurrection.
Siege of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs (1971). Iranian Marines capture the 3 Islands from the UAE.
The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

Battles against the US in the Iran-Iraq War:

Operation Praying Mantis (April 18, 1988). The U.S. retaliation for the Iranian mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58).
Operation Prime Chance (1987-1989). The U.S. operation to stop Iranian mine-laying vessels from blocking the international sea lanes through the Persian Gulf.

Iranian victim

Iran ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997. Iranian troops and civilians suffered tens of thousands of casualties from Iraqi chemical weapons during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. As a result, Iran has publicly stood against the use of chemical weapons, making numerous vitriolic comments against Iraq's use of such weapons in international forums.

Even today, more than eighteen years after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, about 30,000 Iranians are still suffering and dying from the effects of chemical weapons that several western governments provided Iraq with during the war. The need to manage the treatment of such a large number of casualties has placed Iran’s medical specialists in the forefront of the development of effective treatment regimes for chemical weapons victims, and particularly for those suffering from exposure to mustard gas. ^[22]

Main articles: Iranian military industry and List of military equipment manufactured in Iran

Under the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran's military industry was limited to assembly of foreign weapons. In the assembly lines that were put up by American firms, such as Bell, Litton and Northrop, Iranian workers put together a variety of helicopters, aircraft, guided missiles, electronic components and tanks. ^[23]

In 1973 the Iran Electronics Industries (IEI) was established. ^[24] The company was set up in a first attempt to organize the assembly and repair of foreign-delivered weapons. ^[25] The Iranian Defense Industries Organization was the first to succeed in taking a step into what could be called a military industry by reverse engineering Soviet RPG-7, BM21, and SAM-7 missiles in 1979. ^[26]

Nevertheless, most of Iran's weapons before the Islamic revolution were imported from the United States and Europe. Between 1971 and 1975, the Shah went on a buying spree, ordering $8 billion in weapons from the United States alone. This alarmed the United States Congress, which strengthened a 1968 law on arms exports in 1976 and renamed it the Arms Export Control Act. Still, the United States continued to sell large amounts of weapons to Iran until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. ^[27]

After the Islamic revolution, Iran found itself severely isolated and lacking technological expertise. Because of economic sanctions and a weapons embargo put on Iran by the United States, Iran was forced to rely on its domestic arms industry for weapons and spare parts since there were very few countries willing to do business with Iran. ^[28] The Islamic Revolutionary Guards were put in charge of creating what is today known as the Iranian military industry. Under their command Iran's military industry was enormously expanded, and with the Ministry of Defense pouring investment into the missile industry, Iran soon accumulated a vast arsenal of missiles. ^[29]

Since 1992, it also has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, guided missiles, submarines, and a fighter plane.^[30]

Fajr-3 ballistic missile.

On November 2, 2006, Iran fired unarmed missiles to begin 10 days of military war games. Iranian state television reported "dozens of missiles were fired including Shahab-2 and Shahab-3 missiles. The missiles had ranges from 300 km to up to 1300 km. Iranian experts have made some changes to Shahab-3 missiles installing cluster warheads in them with the capacity to carry 1,400 bombs." These launches come after some United States-led military exercises in the Persian Gulf on October 30, 2006, meant to train for blocking the transport of weapons of mass destruction ^[31]. Iran is also believed to have started the development of an ICBM/IRBM missile project, known as Ghadr-110 with a range of more than 3000 km; the program is paralleled with advancement of a satellite launcher named IRIS.