Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

318 • ISLAMIC REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS CORPSsupervision by clerical political officers. Yet according to the researchof Kenneth Katzman, in the post-Khomeini period the IRGC has succeededin quelling its internal factionalism and represents the strongestsingle institution within the Islamic Republic today.With the amending of the Fundamental Law of the Islamic Republicin 1989, the IRGC’s top commanders were included in thecomposition of the National Security Council of the nation, whichcould be mandated by the Supreme Religious Leader to make finalpolicy decisions with regard to military and diplomatic issues. TheIRGC has been developing its own air corps, which uses the formerU.S. embassy as one of its training centers, and a naval corps, as wellas the aforementioned Quds Force. As of 1986, the IRGC groundforces were estimated to have as many as 350,000 members, organizedinto battalion-sized units, but following the end of the Iran-Iraqwar the IRGC troop strength fell by 2008 to 120,000 as opposed tothe 400,000-strong regular armed forces. The IRGC navy was estimatedto have as many as 20,000 members as of 2005. The IRGC airforce reportedly had 200 pilots training in the former East Germanybut since the 1990s more current aircraft have gone exclusively tothe regular Iranian air force, making the IRGC contribution to airdefense minimal. Following the 8 August 1998 Taliban capture ofMazar-i Sharif, in which nine Iranian diplomats were murdered bythe Taliban, the IRGC and the regular armed forces were mobilizedand deployed along the border of Afghanistan to demonstrate Iran’sreadiness to undertake military actions against the Taliban regime.Thus, by the late 1990s, the IRGC had begun to evolve from being arevolutionary military into a more professional one.Of more importance to the IRGC function of defending the regimeand its revolution is the Basij, in full the Niru-yi Muqavamat-i Basij(Mobilization Resistance Force), consisting of 90,000 regulars and upto 300,000 reservists charged with maintaining public order withinthe country. While the regular IRGC are relatively professional menin their prime, the Basij units are made up of teenagers, some preteenboys, old men, and former military men discharged as being either tooold or otherwise unfit for regular military service. The Basij enforcepublic morality and suppress antiregime demonstrations or other behaviorthat the officials of the Islamic Republic deem to be dangerousor subversive. Following antiregime student demonstrations in 1993,the IRGC organized special “Ashura Brigades” in the Basij to deal