Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ISLAMIC REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS CORPS • 317in planning and supervising the truck bombings of the U.S. embassy,U.S. Marines barracks, and French military forces headquarters inLebanon during the period April–October 1983.Since the late 1990s the direction of foreign Islamic movementsaligned with Iran has been divided between the IRGC, which overseesHezbollah in Lebanon and Iraqi Shi’ite militias, and the Ministry ofIntelligence and Security, which directs other Islamic militant movementsas well as maintaining contacts with the various Shi’ite Muslimdiasporas in Europe, Africa, Australia, South Asia, and East Asia.In North and South America, the IRGC uses Hezbollah to maintainlinks with Shi’ite Muslim diasporas. The IRGC also has its own specialoperations elite known as the Quds (“Jerusalem”) Force (IRGC-QF). Currently the IRGC-QF is estimated to have about 2,000–3,000members who receive advanced special operations training and someof whom are attached to Iranian embassies and consulates abroadunder diplomatic cover. The IRGC-QF uses Iranian IRGC and seniorLebanese Hezbollah operatives to train Iraqi Shi’ite militias, such asthe Badr Battalion and other insurgents. Iranian President MahmoudAhmadinejad on occasion has claimed that the IRGC-QF numbers asmany as 50,000 operatives poised worldwide to strike at U.S. and Israeliinterests. The IRGC has also developed a division known as theSpecial Unit of Martyrdom-Seekers for suicide bombing operationsworldwide. Since 1983 the IRGC and Hezbollah have developedmultiple plans for different terrorist attacks and have been detectedcarrying out surveillance of a wide variety of targets throughout theworld. As these surveillance efforts have seldom led to actual attacks,intelligence analysts believe that the IRGC has developed severaloff-the-shelf plans for possible political and military contingencies,giving its operatives a greater capacity for terrorist operations.In November 1982 the Islamic Republic of Iran sought to put the“revolutionary foundations,” such as the IRGC, on a more regularfooting with older, more bureaucratic offices of the government bygiving each foundation its own ministry. Rivalries between the IRGCand the regular armed forces have been lessened, however, mainly bythe experience of shared dangers and duties during the Iran-Iraq war.The factional rivalries of fundamentalist clergymen within the Iranianregime were reflected within the IRGC, as clannish and personalist tiesbetween pasdars and clerical patrons continued to be felt despite extensiveindoctrination of recruits, purging of undesirables, and ideological