IRGC – Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Info:
Military force created following the 1979 revolution originally entrusted with internal security; considered separate from the regular armed forces;

On April 15 2019, the IRGC will be added to the State Department’s FTO list, which includes 67 other terrorist organizations including Hizballah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Kata’ib Hizballah, and al-Ashtar Brigades. The IRGC FTO designation highlights that Iran is an outlaw regime that uses terrorism as a key tool of statecraft and that the IRGC, part of Iran’s official military, has engaged in terrorist activity or terrorism since its inception 40 years ago. The IRGC has been directly involved in terrorist plotting, its support for terrorism is foundational and institutional, and it has killed U.S. citizens. It is also responsible for taking hostages and wrongfully detaining numerous U.S. persons, several of whom remain in captivity in Iran today. The Iranian regime has made a clear choice not only to fund and equip, but also to fuel terrorism, violence, and unrest across the Middle East and around the world at the expense of its own people;

The Iranian regime is responsible for the deaths of at least 603 American service members in Iraq since 2003. This accounts for 17% of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011, and is in addition to the many thousands of Iraqis killed by the IRGC’s proxies. This action is a significant step forward in our maximum pressure campaign against the Iranian regime. We will continue to increase financial pressure and raise the costs on the Iranian regime for its support of terrorist activities until Tehran abandons this unacceptable behavior;

The IRGC, with the support of the Iranian government, has engaged in terrorist activity since its inception 40 years ago. The IRGC—most prominently through its Qods Force—has the greatest role among Iran’s actors in directing and carrying out a global terrorist campaign. In recent years, IRGC Qods Force terrorist planning has been uncovered and disrupted in many countries, including Germany, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Kenya, Bahrain, and Turkey. The IRGC Qods Force in 2011 plotted a brazen terrorist attack against the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. on American soil. Fortunately, this plot was foiled. In September 2018, a U.S. federal court found Iran and the IRGC liable for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing which killed 19 Americans. In 2012, IRGC Qods Force operatives were arrested in Turkey for plotting an attack and in Kenya for planning a bombing. In January 2018, Germany uncovered ten IRGC operatives involved in a terrorist plot in Germany, and convicted another IRGC operative for surveilling a German-Israeli group;

The IRGC continues to provide financial and other material support, training, technology transfer, advanced conventional weapons, guidance, or direction to a broad range of terrorist organizations, including Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Kata’ib Hizballah in Iraq, al-Ashtar Brigades in Bahrain, and other terrorist groups in Syria and around the Gulf. In addition to its support of proxies and terrorist groups abroad, Iran also harbors terrorists within its own borders, thereby facilitating their activities. Iran continues to allow Al Qaeda (AQ) operatives to reside in Iran, where they have been able to move money and fighters to South Asia and Syria. In 2016, the U.S. Treasury Department identified and sanctioned three senior AQ operatives residing in Iran and noted that Iran had knowingly permitted these AQ members, including several of the 9/11 hijackers, to transit its territory on their way to Afghanistan for training and operational planning;

According to the U.S. State Department, involved in planning and support for terrorist acts and groups, personnel sanctioned for missile and nuclear proliferation activities;

Uses Mahan Air and other airplane companies to send fighters, weapons, money to terrorist organizations: Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis;

Has approximately 125,000 troops and 40,000 active duty troops in the Basij, supervises some 400 Iranian nuclear experts, in order to prevent the release of sensitive information about Iran’s nuclear program;

The Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile reportedly was delivered to the IRCG in July 2003;

Bonvad E-Mostazafan Foundation and Bonyad Sepah are controlled by designated Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC);

Owns or controls Khatam-al-Anbia Construction Headquarters, Oriental Oil Kish, Ghorb Nooh, Sahel Consultant Engineering, Ghorb-e Karbala, Sepasad Engineering Co., Omran Sahel, Hara Company and Gharargahe Sazandegi Ghaem, Hemat industrial complex, where the medium-range Shahab-4 missile is allegedly assembled, controls the “Jam” missile development project, based at the Chamran Air Force Base near Jam, about 880 km south of Tehran;

According to the NCRI, extraterritorial missions of the IRGC are commanded and executed by the Special Qods Force, which is led by Brigadier General Ghassem Soleimani;

Also Known As:
Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution
IRGC
Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps
Revolutionary Guards
Pasdaran
Pasdarn-e Enghelab-e Islami
Pasdaran Inqilab

Established:
1979

Country:
Iran

Allegiance:
Supreme Leader of Iran

Branches:
General Staff
Ground Force
Aerospace Force
Navy
Quds Force
Basij Mobilization Force

Person of interests:

Articles/Reports:
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Iran’s cancer
IRGC’s Involvement and Stake in the Iranian Telecommunications sector
Iran airports report – Revolutionary Guards’ control of Iranian airports
Bonyad Mostazafan Foundation
Bonyad Taavon Sepah
Khatam al-Anbiya
Parsian Bank

Reason for the color:
» On April 15, 2019, U.S. designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization;
» Added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on October 22, 2020 pursuant to Executive Order 13848 for having directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election;
» U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pursuant to the global terrorism Executive Order (E.O.) 13224 and consistent with the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. OFAC designated the IRGC today for its activities in support of the IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), which was designated pursuant to E.O. 13224 on October 25, 2007, for providing support to a number of terrorist groups, including Hizballah and Hamas, as well as to the Taliban. The IRGC has provided material support to the IRGC-QF, including by providing training, personnel, and military equipment;
» On 24/10/2016 added on consolidated list of financial sanctions targes in the UK;
» Identified by the British government in February 1998 as having procured goods and/or technology for weapons of mass destruction programs;
» Formed by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the IRGC was responsible for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country and safeguarding the nascent revolution. In recent years, however, the IRGC has increased its involvement with internal threats to the regime, suppressing political dissent since the contested June 2009 presidential election;
The Treasury Department previously designated the IRGC pursuant to E.O. 13382 in October 2007, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their supporters;
» IRGC Sending Elite Fighters to infiltrate US, Europe;
» The Basij Resistance Force is a volunteer paramilitary organization operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC);
» Bonvad E-Mostazafan Foundation Controlled by designated Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC);
» IRGC owns designated Khatam-al Anbiya Construction Headquarter;
» IRGC support Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations;
» IRGC Funded Terrorism
» IRGC Smuggling arms and ammunition
» IRGC Rising Terrorism Empire
» IRGC Arrests 120 at a night party in east Tehran
» The Syrian Opposition Called for Designating the IRGC Militias as Terrorist Groups – 19 March, 2017
» IRGC Terrorists Arrested in Bahrain – 27 March, 2017
» Germany Sentences Iran Regime’s IRGC Intelligence Agent to Imprisonment – 28 March, 2017
» IRGC Is Arm of Iran Regime’s Exporting of Terrorism – 11 April, 2017
» The Presence of The IRGC In Assad’s Military Bases – 12 April 2017