Iran (Thema #n+1), ausgelagert (wieso klauen die imperialististische Uniformen?) Einstellungen

[revolution]

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Der Beitrag wurde von revolution bearbeitet: 4. Jul 2019, 09:39

[Dave76]

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
[...]

The IRGC grew out of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established
the force both to protect the Islamic order of the new Iranian government, and to act as a counter
to the regular armed forces – which were perceived as still loyal to the Shah or as having
uncertain loyalty to the new regime. The IRGC became the backbone of Iran’s military forces
during the Iran-Iraq War, as well as a key tool in dealing with internal opposition and providing
support to other state and non-state actors outside Iran.

The IRGC has now evolved into a major political, military, and economic force. It reports
directly to the Supreme Leader, and is believed to be loyal to Ayatollah Khamenei, but has its
own factions – some of which have loyalties to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is a
veteran of the IRGC. It is more political and ideological than the regular armed forces. A number
of senior officers in the IRGC have relatives or close ties to Iran’s leading clerics.
While unclassified sources are of uncertain reliability, the IRGC is generally reported to have
approximately 125,000 men. It has significant conventional forces, and operates Iran’s longerrange
surface-to-surface missiles. It is believed to play a major role in Iran’s effort to create
nuclear weapons, and most or all other chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN)
programs, and to be the force that would operate Iran’s nuclear-armed forces if they are
deployed.

The IRGC has substantial capabilities for asymmetric warfare and covert operations. It was
members of the Naval Branch of the IRGC that seized 15 British sailors and Marines, who seem
to have been in Iraqi waters, in March 2007. The IRGC also includes the Al Qods Force and
other elements that operate covertly or openly overseas – working with Hezbollah of Lebanon,
Shi’ite militias in Iraq, and Shi’ites in Afghanistan.

IRGC Land Forces

The IRGC has small elements equipped with armor and has the equivalent of conventional army
units, and some units are trained for covert missions and asymmetric warfare, but most of its
forces are lightly equipped infantry trained and equipped for internal security missions. These
forces are reported to have between 120,000 and 130,000 men, but such totals are uncertain as
are all unclassified estimates of the strength, organization, equipment, and industrial base of the
IRGC. This manpower pool includes conscripts recruited from the same pool as regular army
conscripts, and training and retention levels are low. The IRGC land forces also seem to control
the Basij (Mobilization of the Oppressed) and other paramilitary forces in most internal security
operations and if they are mobilized for war.
Some sources, like the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), report a force structure
with 20 “divisions,” but most IRGC units seem to be large battalion-sized elements. According
to a Jane’s report, estimates of the IRGC’s organization differ sharply. Some sources claim that
there are two armored, five mechanized, 18 infantry, and one Special Forces division, and about
15-20 independent brigades. The report concludes that many alleged divisions are equivalent to
large brigades and the personnel numbers of the IRGC could support only three to five
divisions.43 The total manpower pool of the IRGC could support only about five to six light
infantry divisions. There is supposedly also one airborne brigade.

The IRGC often claims to conduct large exercises, sometimes with 100,000 men or more. The
exact size of such exercises is unclear, but they are often a small fraction of what the IRGC
claims. With the exception of a limited number of more elite elements, training is limited and
largely suitable for internal security purposes. Most forces would require substantial refresher
training to act in any mission other than static infantry defense and using asymmetric warfare
tactics like hit-and-run operations or swarming elements of forces when an invader appears
vulnerable.

The IRGC is the center of much of Iran’s effort to develop asymmetric warfare tactics to counter
a US invasion. Work by Michael Connell of the Center for Naval Analysis notes that the IRGC
has been systematically equipping, organizing, and retraining its forces to fight decentralized
partisan and guerrilla warfare. It has strengthened the anti-tank and anti-helicopter weaponry of
the IRGC battalions, and stressed independent battalion-sized operations that can fight with
considerable independence even if Iran loses much of the coherence in its command, control,
communications, and intelligence capabilities.44 Its exercises have included simulated attacks on
US AH-64 attack helicopters with Iran’s more modern man-portable surface-to-air missiles
(MANPADs), and used mines and improvised explosive device (IED)-like systems to attack
advancing armored forces.

The IRGC, like the army and the Basij, have attempted to develop and practice deception,
concealment, and camouflage methods to reduce the effectiveness of US and other modern
imagery coverage, including dispersing into small teams and avoiding the use of uniformed
personnel and military vehicles. While the credibility and effectiveness of such tactics are
uncertain, the IRGC claims to be adopting tactics to avoid enemy radars and satellites. Both the
IRGC and the army have also attempted to deal with US signals and communications
intelligence collection capabilities by making extensive use of buried fiber optics and secure
communications, while developing more secure ways to use the internet and commercial
landlines. Iran claims to be creating relatively advanced secure communications systems, but its
success is uncertain.

Connell notes that the IRGC is developing such tactics in ways that could form a layered or
“mosaic” defense with the army and air forces, where the IRGC could keep up constant pressure
on any advancing US forces. He indicates that the IRGC has developed special stay-behind units
or “cells” that would include some 1,900 to 3,000 teams of three to four soldiers whose main
mission would be to attack US lines of supply and communication, strike at elements in rear
areas, and conduct ambushes of combat troops. This could include sending units forward into
countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to attack US forces there, or encourage local forces to do so,
and sending teams to raid or infiltrate southern Gulf states friendly to the US.

At the same time, Connell notes that if the Iranian Army were defeated and an attacker like the
US moved into Iran’s territory, the IRGC, the Iranian Army, and the Basij are now organized and
trained to fight a much more dispersed war of attrition in which force elements would disperse
and scatter, carrying out a constant series of attacks on US forces wherever they deployed as well
as against US lines of communication and supply.
If the government allowed such force elements to act as their current doctrine calls for, such
elements would have great independence of action, rather than relying on centralized command.
The IRGC and the Iranian Army have clearly paid close attention to both the limited successes
that Saddam’s Fedayeen had against the US advance on Baghdad, and the far more successful
efforts of Iraqi insurgents and militias in attacking US and other coalition forces following the
fall of Baghdad.

One technique such forces attempt to organize for and practice is using cities and built-up areas
as defensive areas that provide concealment and opportunities for ambushes, and for the use of
swarming tactics, which forces an attacker to disperse large numbers of forces to try to clear and
secure given neighborhoods. Connell indicates that some 2,500 Basij members staged such an
exercise in the Western suburbs of Tehran in February 2007. Once again, Iran drew on the
lessons of Iraq; however, Iran also employed such tactics with great success against Iraqi forces
during the Iran-Iraq War, and it has closely studied the lessons of urban and built-up area
fighting in Somalia and Lebanon.

Other reports indicate that the IRGC remains the center of Iran’s hardline security forces, but has
become steadily more political and bureaucratic, and most of its forces now have no combat
experience – it has been more than twenty years since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988.
Corruption and careerism are growing problems, and the IRGC’s role in the defense industry has
led to financial abuses. As such, it is the elite elements of the IRGC that give it real meaning
beyond serving the regime’s need to control its population.

There are different opinions over the relative conventional role of the IRGC relative to other
Iranian forces. One source identifies a trend that will eventually render the regular army more
technologically advanced and more modern in general. Accord to this report, the IRGC, by
contrast, is to focus on “less traditional defense duties,” such as enforcing border security,
commanding the country’s ballistic missile and potential weapons of mass destruction forces,
and preparing for a closing of the Strait of Hormuz militarily.
[...]

Quelle: Anthony H. Cordesman, Alexander Wilner U.S. and Iranian Strategic Competition: The Conventional and Asymmetric Dimensions, CSIS, March 2012