- State affiliation · Iran
- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
State affiliation: Iran.
Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia.
In brief
The military created to defend the revolution rather than the territory — a second armed force with its own ground, naval and aerospace services, holding the missile programme and the external portfolio, and answering to the Supreme Leader in parallel with the Artesh.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. 6 subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination confirmed
- Sources
- 3 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
- Broad area of activity
- Iran, the Gulf, and — through the Quds Force — the wider region
- Notable history
- Khomeini established the Guard in May 1979, months after the revolution and while the Artesh he did not trust was still intact. Its constitutional mandate is to defend the revolution, which is a political task as much as a military one, and over four decades it grew from a militia into a full parallel military with its own ground forces, its own navy, its own aerospace force, its own intelligence service and its own logistics. It also acquired the capabilities that matter most in this system: the ballistic missile and drone programmes sit in its Aerospace Force, the asymmetric Gulf maritime mission sits in its Navy, and its external operations sit in the Quds Force. Israel's opening strike in June 2025 killed its commander-in-chief and the entire senior leadership of its Aerospace Force; the opening strike of the 2026 war killed his successor.
- Strengths
- Holds the capabilities the Iranian state actually uses — missiles, drones, Gulf maritime denial, external partnerships. Its parallel structure makes the Iranian military hard to paralyse by destroying one chain of command, and its continued missile operations after catastrophic leadership losses in both wars indicate that operational authority is pre-delegated well below the top.
- Limitations
- Its autonomy is also a defect: analysts describe genuine joint integration with the Artesh as difficult, with duplicated logistics and separate service cultures imposing coordination costs without operational benefit. Its senior leadership has been targeted successfully and repeatedly, and many of the roughly thirty senior officers killed in early 2026 are reported not to have been replaced — a claim this module carries as reported. Nothing here states what forces it holds, where they are, or what condition they are in.
Subordinate formations
Rows are layout only — position and order carry no hierarchy, importance, sequence or strength. Every record shown is an immediate subordinate of the selected organisation.
Related organisations
- Armed Forces General Staff Institutionally linked to · as of 2026-10 · moderate confidence
Formally, the Guard's commander reports to the chief of the General Staff (US Defense Intelligence Agency, 2019), and both posts are appointed by the Supreme Leader under Article 110 of the constitution. In practice the same report describes the Guard and the Artesh as usually operating independently, and the public wartime record shows the Guard running and announcing its own strike campaign. No published order from the General Staff tasking or restraining the Guard has been found. Formal reporting line, not demonstrated command: neither reading is encoded as a command line.
- Artesh Institutionally linked to · as of 2026-09 · high confidence
Parallel, not subordinate. The two forces maintain separate ground, air and naval services, separate intelligence and separate logistics, and both answer to the Supreme Leader rather than to each other. Analysts describe very little interoperability between them outside air defence.
- Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters Institutionally linked to · as of 2026-10 · moderate confidence
The headquarters' spokesman announces operations and retaliation for "the armed forces" as a whole, and has used the name of the Guard's own numbered strike campaign. The Guard announces each wave of that campaign through its own public relations. No published order from this headquarters tasking, redirecting or restraining a Guard unit has been found, so the link is recorded as institutional and not as command.
Lineage & institutional history
Campaigns
Campaigns naming this organisation as a participant. The campaign record owns the relationship and grades it; this list is computed.
- The 2026 interstate war Opposing force · Since 28 February 2026 · high confidence · as of 2026-09
The Iranian institution that holds the missile and drone programmes and the Gulf maritime mission — the two things Iran has actually done in this war. CRS records US strikes on command and control centres associated with the IRGC specifically. The Guard announces each numbered wave of its own strike campaign through its own public relations.
- The twelve-day war, June 2025 Opposing force · 13 – 24 June 2025 · high confidence · as of 2025-06
Key events
Energy and shipping targets struck across four Gulf states
Over two days, Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG complex and the Mesaieed power-plant water tank, the Mussafah fuel terminal and Fujairah oil terminal in the UAE, and the Omani ports of Duqm and Salalah are reported struck; QatarEnergy suspends LNG production. The IRGC claims responsibility for a drone strike on the tanker Athe Nova, which it identified as an ally of the United States.
Iran accepts a two-week ceasefire, and an order to cease fire goes to all its military branches
Iran's Supreme National Security Council announces that it has accepted a two-week ceasefire with the United States and will negotiate in Islamabad, under Pakistani mediation. A statement read on the state broadcaster about two hours after the United States President announced the deal says the war has not ended but that all military branches should follow the Supreme Leader's order and cease their fire. The council's own statement says Iran's forces would stop their operations if attacks on Iran stopped. The Islamabad talks that followed did not produce an agreement.
The Supreme Leader fills Iran's senior military posts by decree and orders the joint headquarters merged
In decrees published by his office, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei appoints Ali Abdollahi chief of the Armed Forces General Staff and Kioumars Heydari his deputy, names Ahmad Vahidi commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard with Mostafa Izadi as deputy, Ali Azmaei commander of the Guard's navy and Hossein Taeb head of the Basij. The decrees instruct the new chief to complete the integration of the Armed Forces General Staff and the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, on directives attributed to the late Supreme Leader. Abdollahi had been reported as commander of the Central Headquarters since June 2025.
United States and Iranian exchange of strikes
United States Central Command states it struck Iranian military sites after the IRGC attempted to attack United States troops and commercial shipping in the strait; Iranian media report strikes at Sirik, Konarak, Bandar Abbas, Jask, Asaluyeh, Ahvaz and Qeshm. Iran conducts retaliatory strikes against United States facilities in Jordan, Bahrain and Iraq, and Kuwait reports its air defences engaging drones and missiles.
Quick actions
System access
Where this record connects into the rest of Vigil. Each row is here because this organisation actually reaches it.
Assessed as of — 2026-09 Last reviewed — 2026-09-04
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