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153-677: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ( IRGC ; Persian : سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enqelāb-e Eslāmī , lit.   ' Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution ' ), also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards , is a multi-service primary branch of the Iranian Armed Forces . It was officially established by Ruhollah Khomeini as a military branch in May 1979 in

306-541: A Takavar (special force) unit, called Sepah Navy Special Force (S.N.S.F.). The navy received 750 new ships 2024 July. Corps Intelligence directorate are accused of meddling in the 2021 Iranian presidential election . The 2020 edition of The Military Balance, published by IISS , says the IRGC has about 190,000 active personnel and controls the Basij on mobilisation (as much as 40,000 active paramilitary forces). It estimates

459-655: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to

612-487: A broad range of ballistic missiles, as well as developing a space launch capability. In mid-July 2008, Iran launched a number of ballistic missiles during military exercises, reportedly including the medium-range Shahab-3. Iran announced other missile and space launch tests in August and November 2008. In February 2009, Iran announced it launched a satellite into orbit and "officially achieved a presence in space." The Fajr-3

765-536: A call". Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif , responded by saying that since Iran does not possess nuclear weapons nor does it ever intends in having one, it does not design its missiles (Emad) to be capable of carrying something it does not have. Nevertheless, the testing of the Emad missile took place before the adoption of the Resolution 2231. The US, France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, and Australia asked

918-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in

1071-462: A functional GPS guidance platform. It would probably require nuclear warheads in order to compensate for critical problems in accuracy , reliability, and warhead lethality. In June 2020, Iranian admiral Hossein Khanzadi said that Iran would start producing indigenous Supersonic cruise missiles equipped with turbofan engines soon. The foundations for this were laid with

1224-505: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian

1377-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from

1530-719: A massive number of missile TELs to IRGC AF, “Iranian television footage showed at least 26 TELs lined up in two rows for the event, which marked their purported delivery to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force, which operates the country's ballistic missiles”, according to the report by IHS Jane's . Any Iranian long-range intermediate-range ballistic missile or intercontinental ballistic missile would require an extraordinarily effective guidance system and level of reliability to have any real lethality with conventional warheads, even if it could be equipped with

1683-708: A media arm, known as "Sepah News" within Iran. On 16 March 2022, it adopted a new independent branch called the "Command for the Protection and Security of Nuclear Centres" involved with Iran's nuclear programme . Originating as an ideological militia, the IRGC has taken a greater role in nearly every aspect of Iranian politics and society. In 2010, BBC News described the organization as an "Empire". In 2019, Reuters described it as "an industrial empire with political clout". IRGC's expanded social, political, military, and economic role under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad —especially during

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1836-527: A new order to Iran. In time, the Pasdaran would rival the police and the judiciary in terms of its functions. Although the IRGC operated independently of the regular armed forces, it was often considered to be a military force in its own right due to its important role in Iranian defense. The IRGC consists of ground, naval, and aviation troops, which parallel the structure of the regular military. The Pasdaran

1989-536: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and

2142-413: A provincial corps, except Tehran Province, which will have two. In 2007 command for cyber security was established part of cyberdefense of IRGC. It was renamed in 2014, abbreviated GCDC or CIOC. Basij Mustazafin were initially separate organization but were merged in 1980 into Corps and merged to its land forces since 2008. The Basij is a paramilitary volunteer militia or "plainclothes militia" founded by

2295-612: A range of 2,000 km (1,200 mi), and can carry a heavier warhead . Making this missile was a major step in Iran's missile industry, and it opened the way to longer-range missiles. Shahab-3D , which followed the Shahab-3C , is Iran's latest Shahab model. A 2,000-kilometre (1,200 mi) range including Russia (as far as Moscow ), Ukraine, parts of Hungary, Serbia, Greece, Egypt, Arabia, parts of India and China, as well as countries closer to Iran. Jane's Information Group said in 2006 that Iran had six operational Shahab-3 brigades,

2448-640: A range of 2,000 km (1,200 mi), the Ashoura missile. He did not say how the missile differed from the Shahab-3, which has a range of 2,100 km (1,300 mi). He told the gathering Basij militia during the manoeuvers they were holding that same week that the "construction of the Ashoura missile, with the range of 2,000 km (1,200 mi), is among the accomplishments of the Defence Ministry". According to Jane's Defence Weekly ,

2601-589: A senior IRGC commander was killed in combat near Mosul, Iraq. In December 2019, the U.S. Air Force conducted airstrikes on weapons caches and facilities of the IRGC-sponsored militant group Kata'ib Hezbollah . In retaliation, the group attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in the Green Zone . On 3 January 2020, Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike at Baghdad International Airport along with

2754-484: A soldier and have military training. ... a country with 20 million young people [should have] 20 million riflemen, an army of 20 million" This pronouncement and Article 151 of the constitution, which calls for the government to "provide a program of military training, with all requisite facilities, for all its citizens, in accordance with the Islamic criteria, in such a way that all citizens will always be able to engage in

2907-599: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are

3060-839: A subsidiary of Iran's Ministry of Defense, supports the manufacturing process by engaging in SCUD missile restoration. Its short-range missile inventory also includes solid-fueled missiles, such as the Tondar-69 and the Fateh-110 . Also, Iranian artillery rockets include the Samid, the Shahin-2 , the Naze'at , and the Zelzal family ( Zelzal-1 , Zelzal-2 , and Zelzal-3 ). As of 2009 , Iran has an active interest in developing, acquiring, and deploying

3213-404: A system capable of intercepting it is developed. He said it can breach the most advanced and significant missile defense systems in the world, and can also target them. The next day he stated that the tests have been made and that the missile will be unveiled in an appropriate time. The missile was unveiled on 6 June 2023 with the name " Fattah ". IRGC Aerospace Force is known to operate

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3366-555: A variant of the Shahab (Ghadr 1) and questioned its alleged multiple re- entry vehicle capability, suggesting instead that it carried sub-munitions. The Bina missile , which can be carried aloft and is able to be ground-launched from a rail car, was also revealed at the time. The Aerospace Force owns some civilian aircraft. As of 2017, six Russian-made transport planes were reportedly leased to Pouya Air , and two more Embraer ERJ-145ER jets acquired. The IRGC Aerospace Force

3519-474: Is a laser guided dual-capability short-range surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missile . It appears to be an AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile with a semi-active laser (SAL) seeker fitted to its nose. Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said the ballistic missile had radar-evading capabilities. "The new generation of long-range ground-to-ground ballistic missile with a fragmentation warhead and

3672-664: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian

3825-628: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of

3978-401: Is a special operations unit, handling activities abroad. The force basically does not engage directly. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air and Space Force (IRGCASF; Persian : نیروی هوافضای سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی , romanized :  niru-ye havâfazây-e sepâh-e pâsdârân-e enghelâb-e eslâmi , officially acronymed NEHSA )

4131-799: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian

4284-605: Is also their title and comes after their rank . Apart from the name Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , the Iranian Government, media, and those who identify with the organization generally use Sepāh-e Pâsdârân (Army of the Guardians), although it is not uncommon to hear Pâsdârân-e Enghelâb ( پاسداران انقلاب ) (Guardians of the Revolution), or simply Pâsdârân ( پاسداران ) (Guardians) as well. Among

4437-675: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting

4590-409: Is capable of low altitude flight and has a range of 1,350 km (840 mi), a maximum range has not yet been given. It has the ability to strike ground targets with high precision and accuracy. Its motor utilizes a turbojet , it releases low heat signatures and the missile is equipped to deal with the most sophisticated types of electronic warfare. Discussing the capabilities of the missile,

4743-658: Is considered to represent a great advance in accuracy, with a guidance and control system in its nose cone that functions during reentry into the atmosphere. As a consequence of Iran's nuclear deal ( JCPOA ), on 20 July 2015 the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 was endorsed, replacing the Resolution 1929 , which " called upon " Iran " not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons ". It has been argued that

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4896-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of

5049-402: Is currently Iran's most advanced ballistic missile . It is a domestically developed liquid fuel missile with an unknown range. What makes it Iran's most advanced rocket is that the Iranian government says it has multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles (MIRV) capabilities. Its MIRV capability may give it the ability of avoiding anti-missile surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The missile

5202-418: Is evidence which points otherwise. A stolen Iranian laptop, containing over 1000 pages of calculations, simulations and modifications required to make the Shahab-3 nose cone capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, was obtained by U.S. intelligence in 2004 and shown to IAEA officials. Additionally, an interview with Alireza Assar, an Iranian physicist formerly tied with the Iranian ministry of defense, revealed

5355-688: Is no evidence to suggest there had been any prior technology exchange or with its other known technology partners such as North Korea or China. The new two-stage solid-fuel missile has a range of nearly 2,500 km (1,600 mi), it was tested in November 2008. An improved version, the Sejjil-2, was tested in May 2009. Improvements include better navigation system, better targeting system, more payload, longer range, faster lift-off, longer storage time, quicker launch, and lower detection possibilities. US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told

5508-460: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with

5661-475: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),

5814-585: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became

5967-514: Is responsible for the operation of Iran's surface-to-surface (SSM) missile systems. In 2006 it was mentioned by John Negroponte that Iran held the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East . In August 2013, Ahmad Vahidi former defense minister of Iran said that his country was ranked sixth in the world in missile production. It is claimed to operate several thousand short- and medium-range mobile ballistic missiles, including

6120-774: Is the strategic missile , air , and space force within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran . It was renamed from the IRGC Air Force into the IRGC Aerospace Force in 2009. Its 15,000 personnel man around 80 aircraft and operates several thousand short- and medium-range mobile ballistic missiles, including the Shahab-3/3B with a range of up to 2,100 kilometers. IRGC started naval operations using mainly swarm tactics and speedboats during " Tanker War " phase of

6273-495: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting

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6426-436: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes

6579-595: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ( IRGC ). The US government standard is Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , while the United Nations uses Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps . The force's main role is to provide national security. It is responsible for internal and border security, law enforcement, and also Iran's missile forces . IRGC operations are geared towards asymmetric warfare and less traditional duties. These include

6732-506: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on

6885-513: The 2009 presidential election and the suppression of post-election protests —has led many Western analysts to argue that it has surpassed even the country's ruling clerical class in terms of political power. Since 2019, Hossein Salami has served as the IRGC's incumbent commander-in-chief. Government organizations in Iran are commonly known by one-word names (that generally denote their function) rather than acronyms or shortened versions, and

7038-598: The Basij militia. The Basij is a volunteer-based force, with 90,000 regular soldiers and 300,000 reservists. The IRGC is officially recognized as a component of the Iranian military under Article 150 of the Iranian Constitution . It is separate from, and parallel to, the other arm of Iran 's military, which is called Artesh (another Persian word for an army). Especially in the waters of the Persian Gulf ,

7191-668: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of

7344-638: The Center for Strategic and International Studies , writing in August 2007, said only the AFAGIR "may operate Iran's 10 EMB-312 Tucanos", and that it "seems to operate many of Iran's 45 PC-7 training aircraft" as well as Pakistani-built training aircraft at a school near Mushshak , "but this school may be run by the regular air force". He said that reports of the Revolutionary Guards operating F-7s did not seem to be correct. Cordesman noted claims of

7497-546: The Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It

7650-581: The Oghab and Shahin-II missiles. These would lead the way for a number of other rocket artillery systems including Fajr-3 , Nazeat , and Zelzal . The initial effort in this area relied heavily on technical help from the People's Republic of China in the form of assembly and manufacturing contracts during 1991 and 1992. Iran was quick to surpass the Chinese level of assistance and became self-sufficient. Bina

7803-710: The Quds Force , the commando arm of the IRGC that had been blamed for repeated acts of violence in Iraq, and "high-value targets" in the war on terror. In October 2009, several top commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were killed in a suicide bombing in the Pishin region of Sistan-Baluchistan , in the south-east of Iran. The Iranian state television said 31 people died in the attack, and more than 25 were injured. Shia and Sunni tribal leaders were also killed. The Sunni Baluchi insurgent group Jundullah claimed responsibility for

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7956-516: The Shahab-3 , also known as the Ghadr-101. It has a liquid-fuel first stage and a solid-fuel second stage, which allows it to have a range of 2,000 km. It has a higher maneuverability than the Shahab-3 and a setup time of 30 minutes which is shorter than that of the Shahab-3. In November 2007, Iranian Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar announced that Iran had built a new missile with

8109-674: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of

8262-439: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of

8415-413: The Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 incident. However, the IRGC later admitted that the plane had been shot down by mistake. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -⁠shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of

8568-423: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian

8721-582: The navy is largely for the projection of its military power, with the goal of dominating the Gulf region and maintaining its ability to deter and retaliate against adversaries, including the United States . Additional reasons for the indigenous development of missiles may include the regime's intent to showcase its technological advancements, to intimidate and deter neighboring countries, and to reduce its reliance on precarious foreign supplies, particularly from North Korea . The independent production of missiles in Iran can be traced back to at least 1997, when

8874-479: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,

9027-418: The "father of Iranian missiles", Iran announced it has built an advanced hypersonic ballistic missile calling it a "major generational leap". Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh , IRGC-ASF commander, said the missile has a high velocity and can maneuver below and above the Earth's atmosphere. He said "it can breach all the systems of anti-missile defence" and added that he believed it would take decades before

9180-421: The 1991 Gulf War, kept airworthy with the help of Georgian technicians, although reports indicate that all of the IRGCAF aircraft have been sold to Iraq in July 2014, to increase the latter's for CAS and COIN for fighting against ISIS capabilities. All of them were replaced by Su-22 ", all of them flown from Iraq to Iran during 1991 Gulf War, and around forty EMB-312 Tucanos ". The Washington Institute said that

9333-424: The AFAGIR building gliders for use in unconventional warfare, saying that they would be unsuitable delivery platforms, but could at least carry a small number of weapons. However the attached reference was a 1996 Reuters report, making the sources for such assertions extremely thin. The IISS Military Balance 2007 makes no mention of aircraft, referring only to the Shahab 1, 2, and 3 missiles. In October 2009, it

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9486-434: The Ashoura represents a major breakthrough in Iranian missile technology. It is the first two-stage MRBM using solid-fueled rocket motors instead of the existing liquid-fueled technology used on the Shahab . This would dramatically reduce the setup and deployment time for the missile and hence, shorten the amount of warning time for the enemy. Jane's noted that while the development parallels Pakistan's Shaheen-II MRBM there

9639-433: The Basij serve as an auxiliary force engaged in activities such as internal security as well as law enforcement auxiliary, the providing of social service, organizing of public religious ceremonies, and as morality police and the suppression of dissident gatherings. The elite Quds Force (or Jerusalem Force), sometimes described as the successor to the Shah 's Imperial Guards , is estimated to be 2,000–5,000 in number. It

9792-572: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to

9945-416: The Ground Force is 150,000 strong and the Aerospace Force, which controls Iran's strategic-missile force, has some 15,000 personnel. The Naval Forces are estimated to size at least 20,000, including 5,000 Marines . During the Lebanese Civil War , the IRGC allegedly sent troops to train fighters in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon . In Lebanon, political parties had staunch opinions regarding

10098-428: The IRGC is believed to operate Iran's three Shahab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missiles units' while noting that their actual operational status remains uncertain. The Ghadr-110 is a medium-range ballistic missile designed and developed by Iran. The missile has a range of 1,800 to 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) and as such is the Iranian missile with the longest range. It is believed to be an improved version of

10251-453: The IRGC is expected to assume control of any Iranian response to attacks on its nuclear facilities. The IRGC was formed on 5 May 1979 following the Iranian Revolution of 1979 in an effort to consolidate several paramilitary forces into a single force loyal to the new government and to function as a counter to the influence and power of the regular military, initially seen as a potential source of opposition because of its traditional loyalty to

10404-412: The IRGC was in the process of dramatically changing its structure. In a shake-up, in September 2008 Iran's Revolutionary Guards established 31 divisions and an autonomous missile command. The new structure changes the IRGC from a centralized to a decentralized force with 31 provincial corps, whose commanders wield extensive authority and power. According to the plan, each of Iran's thirty provinces will have

10557-423: The IRGC's presence. Some, mainly the Christian militias such as the Lebanese Forces , Phalanges , and most of the Christian groups declared war on the IRGC, claiming they violated Lebanese sovereignty, while others, including Muslim militias, were neutral to their presence. Groups such as the PSP and Mourabiton did not approve of their presence, but to preserve political alliances they decided to remain silent on

10710-773: The IRGC; their status as members of the Iranian military is only vaguely acknowledged and sometimes denied, despite the troops being uniformed fighters led by IRGC officers. They were trained and equipped in Iran, paid salaries by the Iranian military, and received state funerals involving uniformed IRGC personnel. Mid to late October 2015 was particularly bloody for the IRGC, due to them stepping up their involvement in offensives around Aleppo . During this time, 30 IRGC officers, including "three generals, battalion commanders, captains and lieutenants" and "one pilot" were killed in fighting in Syria, as were several Afghan and Pakistani auxiliaries. The fallen included General Hossein Hamadani , Farshad Hosounizadeh (IRGC colonel and former commander of

10863-479: The IRGCAF maintained thirty Y-12 and Dassault Falcon 20 light transports, as well as MFI-17 Mushshak and Super Mushshak trainers, and locally built Ababil and Mohajer reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The AFAGIR also operates a sizable rotary-wing force consisting of around twenty Mi-171 helicopters for transport and armed assault roles, and a large transport force out of Shiraz , equipped with around fifteen ex-Iraqi Il-76s, originally operated by

11016-509: The IRIAF, and twelve An-74TK-200 transports. Scramble backs up this picture in general, reporting An-74s , An-14s , and Su-22 at Tehran Mehrabad , Chengdu F-7Ms at Zahedan , while saying that MFI-17s were often reported at Zahedan incorrectly, and Il-76 AEW variants at Shiraz Shahid Dastghaib International Airport , while saying that they might be based at Mehrabad. Other later writings make no mention of Il-76s . Anthony Cordesman of

11169-511: The Iranian Studies program at Stanford), the regime "clearly ... believed it was going to lose control, and the IRGC and the Basij saved the day. The result is that the IRGC now has the upper hand. Khamenei knows that without the IRGC he'd be out of a job in twenty-four hours." Yahya Rahim Safavi , head of the IRGC since 1997, was dismissed as commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards in August 2007. The dismissal of Safavi disrupted

11322-696: The Iranian population, and especially among diaspora Iranians, using the word Pasdaran indicates hatred or admiration for the organization. Most foreign governments and the English-speaking mass media tend to use the term Iranian Revolutionary Guards ( IRG ) or simply the Revolutionary Guards . In the US media, the force is frequently referred to interchangeably as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or

11475-561: The Iran–Iraq War. IRGC Navy and the regular Artesh Navy overlap functions and areas of responsibility, but they are distinct in terms of how they are trained and equipped—and more importantly also in how they fight. The Revolutionary Guards Navy has a large inventory of small fast attack craft, and specializes in asymmetric hit-and-run tactics . It is more akin to a guerrilla force at sea, and maintains large arsenals of coastal defense and anti-ship cruise missiles and mines. It has also

11628-645: The Iraqi government in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Major General Qasem Soleimani was an instrumental force in the Iranian ground mission in Iraq against ISIS , purportedly planning the Second Battle of Tikrit . In December 2014, Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi , a veteran of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War , was killed by snipers in Samarra . In May 2017, Shaaban Nassiri,

11781-468: The Israeli military intelligence website DEBKAfile states that there is "no military force in the world has so far found an effective means of intercepting cruise missiles before they strike, unless they are short range." The missile is essentially immune to any sort of radar and missile defense systems. On 10 November 2022, during the 11th anniversary of the death of Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam , known as

11934-625: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it

12087-543: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After

12240-610: The PMF commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis . Iran revolutionary guards said that they had shot down an Israeli drone approaching the Natanz nuclear facility . According to ISNA , "The downed aircraft was of the stealth, radar-evasive type ... and was targeted by a ground-to-air missile before it managed to enter the area." The statement by revolutionary guards did not mention how they recognized it as an Israeli drone. Israel offered no comment. Iranian authorities initially denied responsibility for

12393-486: The Pasdaran under a decree issued by Khomeini on 5 May. The Pasdaran was intended to protect the Revolution and to assist the ruling clerics in the day-to-day enforcement of the new government's Islamic codes and morality. There were other, perhaps more important, reasons for establishing the Pasdaran. The Revolution needed to rely on a force of its own rather than borrowing the previous regime's tainted units. As one of

12546-530: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian

12699-481: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in

12852-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under

13005-886: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,

13158-779: The Saberin Special Forces Brigade), Mostafa Sadrzadeh (commander of the Omar Battalion of the Fatmiyoon Brigade), and Hamid Mojtaba Mokhtarband (IRGC commander). Two battalions of Revolutionary Guards were reported to be operating in Iraq trying to combat the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive . The IRGC is considered to be a principle backer of the Popular Mobilization Forces , a loose coalition of Shi'a militias allied with

13311-484: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised

13464-588: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)

13617-462: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of

13770-708: The Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2014 that Iran was expected to test "a missile system that could potentially have ICBM-class range", a possible reference to the Simorgh satellite launch vehicle (SLV) on which Iran is working. On October 10, 2015, Iran launched a new missile, the Emad . The Emad is capable of delivering a nuclear weapon and has a range of 1,700 km (c. 1,000 miles), enough to reach all of Israel and Saudi Arabia. It

13923-641: The Shah. From the beginning of the new Islamic government, the Pasdaran (Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Islami) functioned as a corps of the faithful. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic entrusted the defense of Iran's territorial integrity and political independence to the regular military ( artesh ) , while it gave the Pasdaran the responsibility of preserving the Revolution itself. Days after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's return to Tehran on 1 February 1979, Mehdi Bazargan 's interim administration established

14076-474: The Shahab-3/3B with a range of up to 2,100 kilometers, which is the mainstay of Iran's strategic deterrent. This puts even NATO members Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania within striking range, if fired from Western Iran. If Iran ever produces nuclear weapons, they fall under the direct supervision of the Aerospace Force. Iran says that it has no intention of producing nuclear weapons. However, there

14229-471: The Space Command, Brigadier General Ali Jafarabadi, has stated that the reconnaissance satellite is part of a larger project that will include satellites with communication and navigation capabilities, in addition to reconnaissance. In November 2022, the IRGC conducted a successful suborbital test launch of the newly unveiled Qaem-100 launch vehicle. In September 2023, Noor-3 , also called Najm,

14382-583: The Syrian war, Iran had between 2,000 and 3,000 IRGC officers stationed in Syria, helping to train local troops and managing supply routes of arms and money to neighboring Lebanon. General Qa'ani, Senior officer of Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, said: "If the Islamic Republic was not present in Syria, the massacre of civilians would have been twice as bad. Had physically and non-physically stopped

14535-628: The UN Security Council to investigate and take appropriate action. The Hoveyzeh Cruise Missile is an all-weather, surface-to-surface cruise missile . The Hoveyzeh is from the Soumar family of cruise missiles. The missile was unveiled and put on display on February 2, 2019, at an exhibition of defense achievements in Tehran during commemorations of the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The surface-to-surface cruise missile

14688-619: The aftermath of the Iranian Revolution . Whereas the Iranian Army protects the country's sovereignty in a traditional capacity, the IRGC's constitutional mandate is to ensure the integrity of the Islamic Republic . Most interpretations of this mandate assert that it entrusts the IRGC with preventing foreign interference in Iran , thwarting coups by the traditional military, and crushing "deviant movements" that harm

14841-498: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before

14994-405: The armed defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran," are believed to refer to the Basij. While "Iranian official estimates sometime put their total part-time and full-time strength at more than 20 million", others estimate the Basij as having "a core strength of 90,000, and up to 600,000" (CSIS, 11 January 2018, p. 4); at 100,000 with "hundreds of thousands of additional Basij could be mobilized in

15147-761: The attack. The Iranian government initially blamed the United States for involvement in the attacks, as well as Saudi Arabia , the United Kingdom and later Pakistan for their alleged support of the Jundallah group. The United States denied involvement, but some reports of US assistance to Jundallah during the Bush administration have come from Western sources. The attacks appear to have originated in Pakistan and several suspects have been arrested. Prior to

15300-515: The balance of power in Iran to the advantage of conservatives. Analysis in the international press considered the removal of Safavi to be a sign of change in the defense strategies of Iran, but the general policies of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are not personally determined by its commander. Iran's top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh , was assassinated in Tehran , Iran on 27 November 2020. Fakhrizadeh

15453-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being

15606-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by

15759-461: The control of smuggling, control of the Strait of Hormuz , and resistance operations. The IRGC is intended to complement the more traditional role of the regular Iranian military, with the two forces operating separately and focusing on different operational roles. The IRGC is a combined arms force with its own ground forces , navy , air force , intelligence , and special forces . It also controls

15912-527: The country obtained missile plans and production components from Russia and began constructing missile production facilities, including the two tunnels for housing Scud missiles at Kuh-e-Padri, located along the Persian Gulf between Bandar Abbas and Bushehr . Additionally, Iran received assistance from China in the construction of the Ballistic missile plant and test range east of Teheran and

16065-586: The event or an all-out war" (CRS, 23 May 2018, p. 18). The Basij are "the most visible symbol" of the Pasdaran's strength, whose members "can be seen on street corners in every Iranian city". They are (at least in theory) subordinate to, and receive their orders from, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. However they have also been described as "a loosely allied group of organizations" including "many groups controlled by local clerics." Currently,

16218-417: The existence of a military nuclear program whose goal was "to produce enough HEU ( Highly Enriched Uranium ) to enable the regime to produce nuclear weapons". Iran's continuous lack of transparency regarding their nuclear program has resulted in much suspicion regarding its intentions. According to the testimony of John Negroponte in 2006, Iran's ballistic missile development, together with its enhancement of

16371-652: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak

16524-468: The first of which was established in July 2003. They said that the six brigades were mainly equipped with standard variants, but with others described as enhanced Shahab-3 variants, with ranges of 1,300, 1,500, and 2,000 km (810, 930, and 1,240 mi), respectively. Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies however said only in August 2007 that 'the air force of

16677-478: The first revolutionary institutions, the Pasdaran helped legitimize the Revolution and gave the new government an armed basis of support. Moreover, the establishment of the Pasdaran served notice to both the population and the regular armed forces that the Khomeini government was quickly developing its own enforcement body. Thus, the Pasdaran, along with its political counterpart, Crusade for Reconstruction, brought

16830-670: The focus of the effort quickly changed and focused on assembly and maintenance. A domestic version of the Scud-B, known as Shahab-1 , was developed and manufactured. This led to its successor the Shahab-2 , a variant of the Scud-C with a range of 500 to 700 km, and finally the Shahab-3 . Since the end of the war, Iran has consistently attempted to recruit foreign help, as well as its large and highly qualified expatriate population, into its missile program. Iranian expatriates who left with

16983-562: The following air defense equipment: The IRGC Aerospace Force has been running its own space program, and on 22 April 2020, it made existence of its own 'Space Command' public. On that date it successfully launched its first military satellite , the Noor , into orbit. This was acknowledged by Western experts, and marked joining the club of about a dozen countries to have carried out such a project. The United States Space Force 's chief of space operations , General John W. Raymond , said it

17136-595: The following phylogenetic classification: Air Force of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution Most American public sources disagree and argue on which aircraft are operated by the AFAGIR. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy said in 2005 that "[t]he backbone of the IRGCAF consists of ten Su-25 Frogfoot attack aircraft, including seven flown from Iraq to Iran during

17289-577: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to

17442-476: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like

17595-439: The general populace universally refers to the IRGC as Sepâh ( سپاه ) ( Sepoy ; Sipahi ). Sepâh has a historical connotation of soldiers, while in modern Persian it is also used to describe a corps-sized unit – in modern Persian Artesh ( ارتش ) is the more standard term for an army. Pâsdârân ( پاسداران ) is the plural form of Pâsdâr ( پاسدار ), meaning "Guardian", and members of Sepah are known as Pāsdār , which

17748-452: The ideological legacy of the Islamic Revolution. Currently, the IRGC is designated as a terrorist organization by Bahrain , Canada , Saudi Arabia , Sweden and the United States . As of 2024, the IRGC had approximately 125,000 total personnel. The IRGC Navy is now Iran's primary force exercising operational control over the Persian Gulf . The IRGC's Basij , a paramilitary volunteer militia, has about 90,000 active personnel. It operates

17901-496: The language is not a legal prohibition. The U.S. ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said that the Emad missile was inherently capable of delivering a nuclear warhead which is therefore a violation. However, Vitaly Churkin , Russia's ambassador disputed this interpretation: "a call is different from a ban, so legally you cannot violate a call, you can comply with a call or you can ignore the call, but you cannot violate

18054-466: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed

18207-424: The laser-guided air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missile dubbed Bina (Insightful) have been successfully test-fired. The Bina missile is capable of striking important targets such as bridges, tanks and enemy command centres with great precision." After the war, Iran's experience of liquid fuel missiles had purely focused on the reverse engineering of Scud-B missiles. However, with the post war reorganisation

18360-578: The matter. During the 2006 Lebanon War , several Iranian Revolutionary Guards were reportedly killed by Israeli forces in Baalbek , a town close to the Syrian border. Israeli officials believe that Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces were responsible for training and equipping the Hezbollah fighters behind the missile attack on the INS Hanit which left four Israeli sailors dead and seriously damaged

18513-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following

18666-536: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as

18819-466: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created

18972-448: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal

19125-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian

19278-732: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became

19431-542: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in

19584-488: The order of the Ayatollah Khomeini in November 1979. On November 4, 1979, in an address to the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran hostage crisis , Khomeini ordered the creation of an army of "twenty million Iranians" ( Artesh-e bis million ), proclaiming: Equip yourself, get military training and train your friends. Give military training to those who are not trained. In an Islamic country, everyone should be

19737-646: The plane's engines had failed, its landing gear had jammed, and there was snow and poor visibility at the time. On 7 July 2008, investigative journalist and author Seymour Hersh wrote an article in The New Yorker stating that the Bush Administration had signed a presidential finding authorizing the CIA 's Special Activities Division to begin cross border paramilitary operations from Iraq and Afghanistan into Iran. These operations would be against

19890-638: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian

20043-455: The production facility near Semnan , as well as guidance technologies and precision machine tools for the production of ballistic missiles. The largest of the missile production facilities in Iran is the complex located near Isfahan , the assembly site of the Scud-B missile kits from North Korea , and was built in cooperation with North Korea and possibly Chinese assistance. In May 2013, Iran's Ministry of Defense and Logistics delivered

20196-509: The rank of Brigadier. Additionally, 354 Afghan combatants had died who were fighting under the command of the IRGC, as part of the IRGC-equipped and trained Fatemiyoun Brigade , which is part of Hezbollah Afghanistan . Another 21 Pakistanis also died as part of the Zainabiyoun Brigade . The Afghan and Pakistani immigrants volunteered to go to Syria in exchange for salaries and citizenship. The Afghans were recruited largely from refugees inside Iran, and usually had combat experience before joining

20349-443: The rebels from killing many more among the Syrian people." Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers, along with fellow Shi'ite forces from Hezbollah and members of Iran's Basij militia participated in the capture of Qusair from rebel forces on 9 June 2013. In 2014, Iran increased its deployment of IRGC in Syria. By late 2015, 194 IRGC troops had been killed in Syria; almost all of these soldiers were officers, with several even reaching

20502-477: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in

20655-441: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali

20808-452: The revolution have been slow to return, but many are now doing so and thus heralding a new age for Iran's missile development programme with their tremendous wealth of technical experience. Iran has an arsenal of short-range, liquid-fueled missiles including the Scud-B and Scud-C , and is now able to produce SCUD type missiles on its own, such as the R-17E, a variant of the Russian R-17 Elbrus (Scud-B). The Aerospace Industries Organization,

20961-554: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced

21114-452: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses

21267-458: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,

21420-422: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in

21573-412: The vessel. In January 2006, an IRGC Falcon crashed near Oroumieh , about 560 miles northwest of Tehran, near the Turkish border, Iranian media reported. All fifteen passengers died, including twelve senior IRGC commanders. Among the dead was General Ahmad Kazemi , the IRGC ground forces commander, and Iran–Iraq War veteran. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, spokesman for the IRGC, told state radio that both of

21726-414: The whole system, so everyone is loyal to him, He is hyperactive. He knows every low-ranking commander and even the names of their children'", according to Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The Basij and Pasdaran were instrumental in crushing the Green Movement , and this power gave them political supremecy in Iran. According to at least one source (Abbas Milani, the director of

21879-565: Was "given control of Iran's ballistic missile program in both missile employment and development. Also contained under the umbrella of the more conventional Pasdaran, were the Basij Forces (Mobilization Resistance Force), a network of potentially up to a million active individuals who could be called upon in times of need. The Basij could be committed to assist in the defense of the country against internal or external threats, but by 2008 had also been deployed in mobilizing voters in elections and alleged tampering during such activities. Another element

22032-416: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of

22185-406: Was announced that its name has been changed from IRGC Air Force to IRGC Aerospace Force. In February 2014, Jane's announced that the Barani missile system had been tested. This system is a laser-guided air-to-surface missile which releases submunitions: "new generation of long-range ballistic missiles carrying multiple re-entry vehicle MIRV payloads". The UN Panel of Experts identified it as

22338-561: Was believed to be the primary force behind Iran's covert nuclear program for many decades. The New York Times reported that Israel's Mossad was behind that attack and that Mick Mulroy , the former Deputy Defense Secretary for the Middle East said the death of Fakhirizadeh was "a setback to Iran's nuclear program" and he was also a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and that "will magnify Iran's desire to respond by force." The Corps have occasionally distributed food aid packages. In late July 2008, reports originating that

22491-418: Was last launched during Holy Prophet wargames, which was the IRGC's largest naval war games ever. The Fajr-3 and the Fajr-3 artillery rocket are different systems. The Shahab-3 is a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) that was built by Iran's military. Its first model, also known as Shahab-3A has a range of 1,300 km (810 mi). Soon after Iran came with a new model called Shahab-3B , which has

22644-484: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in

22797-412: Was soon operational. In July 2020, the Aerospace Force said that it had received detailed images of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where United States Central Command 's forward headquarters is hosted, captured by the satellite. In March 2022, a second launch of the Qased launch vehicle from the shahroud space center put the Noor-2 military reconnaissance satellite into orbit. Commander of

22950-488: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in

23103-447: Was the Quds Force , a special forces element tasked with unconventional warfare roles and known to be involved in providing assistance and training to various militant organizations around the world. The Pasdaran is closely associated with Supreme Leader Khamenei who came to power in 1989, and used the Pasdaran to build support. Reportedly he reached "far down into the ranks and appointed new colonels and brigadiers. 'Khamenei micromanages

23256-425: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راه‌آهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in

23409-418: Was unlikely that Iran's Noor satellite provided any information of value, describing it as "a tumbling webcam in space." However, an Israeli security source told Haaretz that the satellite is "indeed an important accomplishment for the Iranian space program in general and its military in particular". Uzi Rubin commented that he "wouldn't be surprised" if an Iranian system of operational military space assets

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