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WASHINGTON – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is, across the United States, one of the most damaging threats to U. S. interests in the world, and has been for many decades. The use of military, paramilitary and terrorist proxies has drawn the United States into confrontations with Tehran that could lead to a regional or even global war.
So far that hasn’t happened. But many current and former national security officials fear it’s only a matter of time, given the group’s recent provocations. This is especially true in the context of the October 7 attacks in which Hamas militants – traditionally funded, trained and supplied through Iran – entered Israel. , killing more than 1,400 people and kidnapping up to 220 hostages in Gaza.
The United States has launched airstrikes against two facilities linked to Iranian-backed militias in eastern Syria, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said last Thursday, after a series of drone and rocket attacks on U. S. forces in the region that Biden’s leadership believed were Iran-related. and Iran. IRGC.
Austin said the two services in Syria were used through the IRGC and affiliated groups.
In a statement, the defense secretary said the U. S. reaction makes clear that “the United States will tolerate such attacks and protect itself, its personnel, and its interests. “
Austin also highlighted the covert activities of Iran and its IRGC, saying that the U. S. “does not seek confrontation and has no goal or preference for engaging in additional hostilities, but those Iranian-backed attacks on U. S. forces are unacceptable and will have to be stopped.
Read more: It’s a key link between Hamas and Iran. Now Israel travels all over the world to him.
“Iran needs to hide its hand and deny its role in those attacks on our forces,” Austin said. “We probably wouldn’t allow them. “
What are the functions of the IRGC at the moment, and what risk does it pose to U. S. interests?Could this drag Washington into an escalation of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip or some other kind of military engagement?
These questions are being urgently asked and debated in Washington and other global capitals in the wake of this recent maxim (and) escalation.
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA box office officer in the Middle East, called the U. S. airstrikes “highly proportional” and “entirely justified, given the risk to U. S. forces” in an earlier post on X, formerly Twitter. Iran’s limited “but strong” message to Iran marks a significant escalation from previous ones, as the airstrikes appear to be aimed at a genuine IRGC facility and simply a base used through Iranian proxy forces such as local militias.
U. S. intelligence’s immediate priority will depend on whether any IRGC agents present at the scene were killed, Polymeropoulos tweeted. “And what will be Iran’s overall reaction?Their rhetoric in public is opposed to action. “
The airstrikes, led by President Joe Biden, came after 21 U. S. infantrymen were wounded in 10 drone and rocket attacks in Iraq and three in Syria by Iranian-backed militias between Oct. 17 and Oct. 24. They were killed in a central attack as they took cover in position one of the attacks, U. S. officials said.
The moves came after a series of warnings and threats from U. S. and Iranian officials.
On Wednesday, Biden warned Iran’s ideal leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that the U. S. would respond if Tehran tried to send U. S. troops stationed in the region.
“My warning to the ayatollah was that if they continued to act against those troops, we would respond and he would be prepared,” Biden said at a press convention in Rose Garden. “It has nothing to do with Israel” and its army. reaction to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, he said.
Read more: U. S. moves Iranian-backed facilities in Syria after attacks on U. S. troops
On Thursday, a day after Biden’s warning, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly that the United States “will be saved from the fire of war in the region” if the Israeli army’s attack on Gaza continues. “I say frankly to American statesmen: we welcome the expansion of the war in the region, but if the genocide in Gaza continues, you will be saved from this bonfire,” he said in English, according to a report from Iran. International English, a news service for Iranians.
The IRGC is a key component of Iran’s armed forces, but it differs from its traditional military. Established after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, it is tasked with protecting Iran’s revolutionary regime, i. e. , its omnipotent organization of leaders known as mullahs.
According to the U. S. National Counterterrorism Center, the IRGC has land, naval and air forces, an internal security defense force known as the Basij and an elite branch in external operations known as the Quds Force.
The Quds Force is one of the Iranian regime’s main organizations tasked with carrying out fatal covert activities outside Iran, adding guerrilla warfare and terrorist operations, according to the Counterterrorism Center’s biography. “Iran sees terrorism as a tool it can use for its efforts to deter and counter its perceived enemies, assert its leadership over Shiite Muslims around the world, and allocate its strength in the Middle East. “
Each year, senior U. S. security officials from military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies testify before Congress that the IRGC and Quds Force remain top of the list of organizations interested in (and capable of) inflicting serious harm on U. S. interests. maximum maximum probably through the use of indirect forces that they have cultivated all over the world.
One of the most dangerous is Hezbollah, the U. S. -designed Lebanon-based terrorist organization that has been killing Americans since the bombing of the U. S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, which killed 241 U. S. service members. But through the IRGC and Quds Force, Iran has provided assistance to militant groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Yemen, according to a study by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. He argues that “the IRGC controls giant sectors of the Iranian military. “”The economy is helping to fund its activities, and that sweeping U. S. sanctions do not appear to restrict its regional ambitions. “
The Quds Force has planned and carried out covert operations around the world and provides advice, training, investments and weapons to Shiite militant partners and proxies in other Middle Eastern countries, including Hamas in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. and its representatives will offer (the Quds Force) a measure of denial and develop its ability to function around the world,” the counter-terrorism center said.
According to the U. S. , Israel, and some other countries, it’s both. Based in Iran, the IRGC – and the elite Quds Force in particular – has carried out operations, primarily in Iraq and Syria, but also around the world, adding U. S. soil to the U. S. Officials estimate that the IRGC has between 150,000 and 190,000 fighters and other personnel. The Quds Force has between 5,000 and 15,000 troops, “carefully selected within the broader IRGC for their competence and loyalty to the regime,” the counterterrorism center said.
The Quds Force only targets the United States and Israel, but also Saudi Arabia, its oil enemy in the Middle East, and its agents have killed many Iranian dissidents and other adversaries, including the United States. Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton, the federal government, which has provided Bolton and other current and former U. S. officials with security details, is on a longtime Iranian kill list, is a hawk on Iran.
Read more: U. S. sanctions Iranian officials for plotting against John Bolton, Trump officials
As a component of Iran’s state security apparatus, the Quds Force uses its military and intelligence functions for its own terrorist operations and those of its components and proxies. It has provided a complex military apparatus to Lebanon-based Hezbollah, adding air defense and coastal defense systems. cruise missiles, long-range rockets and drone systems, the counterterrorism center said. It is important to note that the Pentagon supplies Iraqi Shiite militant groups with anti-aircraft weapons, specifically improvised explosive devices (IEDs) known as explosive-shaped armor-piercing projectiles, rockets, rocket-propelled grenades, and unmanned aircraft systems.
And the U. S. government has long considered the Tehran government a terrorist entity, just as the Quds Force did not designate the IRGC in its entirety as a foreign terrorist organization until April 2019, according to the Counterterrorism Center.
Prior to that, the U. S. Treasury Department designated the Quds Force as an FTO, or foreign terrorist organization, in October 2007. That same month, the branch appointed the notoriously brutal commander of the Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, as a specially appointed member. terrorist.
In March 2012, the Treasury Department imposed the same sanctions and designations on current Quds Force commander Esmail Ghani, who took power someday after U. S. forces killed Soleimani in an airstrike in Iraq in January 2020. The Trump administration’s operation against Soleimani prompted Iran to release more sanctions. More than a dozen retaliatory missiles opposed two military bases in Iraq that house U. S. forces and sparked a fierce legal debate over whether the U. S. is engaging in an unlawful killing or a legitimate, long-term legal act by the United States. War on terror.
Thursday night’s U. S. airstrikes in Syria will likely trigger retaliatory actions by Iran, former U. S. counterterrorism officials say. Tehran, for example, has pledged to avenge Soleimani’s assassination, and while it has introduced some measures through proxies in Iraq and elsewhere, the full-scale attack that many U. S. officials were preparing for has yet to happen.
“Now everyone is Googling at 2 a. m. for the ladder theory,” Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer in the Middle East, tweeted Friday morning.
This article made the impression in USA TODAY: U. S. Attacks IRGC in Syria: Understanding Iran’s Elite Military Unit