- 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 Revolutionary Guard's external service — the institution through which Iran's relationships with armed partners beyond its borders are run, and the organisational reason those relationships are a military portfolio rather than a diplomatic one.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. No subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination confirmed
- Sources
- 3 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
- Broad area of activity
- Beyond Iran's borders — the Levant, Iraq, Yemen and wherever Iran maintains an armed partner
- Notable history
- The Quds Force is the Guard's arm for everything outside Iran: it trains, supplies, finances and coordinates the armed movements Iran describes as the axis of resistance, and it has done so through a succession of commanders of whom Qassem Soleimani, killed by the United States in January 2020, was the most consequential. In this module it matters for one structural reason. The relationship between Iran and the Houthi movement — which in July 2026 closed the outlet of Saudi Arabia's Hormuz alternative at Bab el-Mandeb — runs through this organisation, and that is why the module treats the relationship as real, contested in degree, and not the same thing as command. A partner supplied by the Quds Force remains its own organisation with its own reasons.
- Strengths
- Reach that no other Iranian institution has, built over three decades of partnerships that give Iran options at every chokepoint in the region.
- Limitations
- Influence is not command: the partners it supplies act on their own interests, which the Houthi blockade of Saudi shipping illustrates — it serves Houthi objectives whether or not it serves Tehran's. The force's activities are the least observable of any Iranian service and the most subject to claim and counter-claim. Nothing here describes personnel, operations, routes or networks.
Related organisations
- Hezbollah's military organisation External supporter of · as of 2026-08 · moderate confidence
Iranian support — funding, weapons and training — is documented over decades. Three investigations relying on anonymous sources (Le Figaro, October 2025; Reuters, 21 March 2026; Middle East Eye, August 2026) report Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers helping to rebuild the military command after 2024; Reuters says "IRGC" throughout, and its claim of direct supervision rests on one source. The IRGC announced joint missile operations with Hezbollah in March 2026, on its own account. The US Treasury, re-designating Hizballah on 20 August 2026 (release sb0611), described it as serving the Iranian regime "under the command of" the IRGC-Qods Force; that is the US government's legal characterisation and is attributed to it. Vigil's position is unchanged: support and influence are not command, and the edge records support, not a chain of command.
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 — 2026-09-09
See this force in the structure Interactive: select this record and follow what connects to it.