FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Iran is Planning to Launch Major Military Exercises Next Week

Among other things, Iran is planning on testing several new conventional weapons including air defense systems, anti-armor missiles, and a wide array of other missile systems.
Photo by AP/Ebrahim Noroozi

Iran will carry out a large-scale military exercises next week, starting on December 23 and continuing through to the end of the month, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim News. The exercises will be held in southeastern Iran, along the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, extending all the way down to the Iranian coast.

Although the exercises — named "Muhammad Rasullullah" (meaning Muhammad is the messenger of God) — will involve a significant counterterrorism component, Iranian planners are also going to be doing a great deal of work on improving more conventional capabilities. Among other things, Iran is planning on testing several new conventional weapons including air defense systems, anti-armor missiles, and a wide array of other missile systems.

Reports about the forces participating in the exercise appear, at first glance, to be contradictory. The report from the Tasnim News agency says that the exercises will involve the Ground Forces, Navy, Air Force, and Air Defense Forces. However, in a different report from the Islamic Republic News Agency described the participating units as "various surface and under-surface units from Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as well as the Basij (Volunteer) Force."

The reason these two reports differ is because Iran maintains two somewhat parallel military organizations: the regular army and the Revolutionary Guard. Formally, both belong to the Armed Forces of Iran, but that splits at a high level into the regular Army and Revolutionary Guard. The regular military's mission is to preserve Iranian territorial integrity and maintain internal order. The Revolutionary Guard is entrusted with preserving the country's Islamic system. The functional and theoretical overlap between the two parallel systems has exerted significant political torque on both organizations, as well as complicating internal Iranian politics.

The regular Army, which consists of the four branches  — ground, navy, air, and air defense — and is about four times the size of the Revolutionary Guard. It is, however, considered a less ideologically reliable force.

The Revolutionary Guard has six main components: Basij, Quds Force, the Missile Force, the Aerospace Force, the Ground Force, and Navy. The Basij is a paramilitary volunteer organization that basically serves as a kind of quasi police force and is generally used to maintain civil order. The Quds Force is the main special forces command in Iran and also carries out a lot Iran's covert military activities in other countries. The missile force maintains Iranian strategic missile capabilities. The Aerospace Force is the Revolutionary Guard's Air Force. The ground force and navy are simply revolutionary guard counterparts to the regular military's branches.