Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ISLAMIC REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS CORPS • 319specifically with organized political dissent and demonstrations. Asof 1998 there were about 17,000 members of these specialized antiriotunits. During much of the post-Khomeini period, the IRGC hasbecome more important as an internal security force rather than as anoffensive military force, having been called upon, along with the BasijMobilization and Ghast-Harasat (proregime vigilantes-volunteers), toquell a number of civil disturbances that have broken out sporadically,including a riot in protest of austerity measures in March 1995.Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led forces, Iran developeda “passive defense” program to counter any U.S.-led attack uponIran as well as to neutralize any domestic movement to topple the currentregime. This program was put under the leadership of an IRGCcommander, Gholam Reza Jalali, and relies on the IRGC-trained and-led Basij Mobilization Corps to serve both as a sort of home guardand as a civil defense organization. Following clashes of internal securityforces with dissident minorities in Baluchistan, Khuzestan, andKurdistan, the supreme leader, Khamene’i, in February 2008 delegatedmore authority to the IRGC to tighten up domestic security to preventinternal dissent and insurrections from threatening the regime.In several of the joint armed forces and IRGC military maneuversand war games conducted in the period 1991–1996, reports mentionedthe IRGC’s Shim-Min-Rey Corps (the Persian abbreviationfor “chemical-biological-nuclear”). During these war exercises, theIRGC has conducted simulations of deployments into environmentsaffected by various types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).Some U.S. military analysts believe that Iran, through the IRGC, isactively pursuing its own WMD program, although this has been deniedby Iranian officials. Nonetheless, on 14 August 2002, an Iraniandissident, Alireza Jafarzadeh, exposed the existence of a uraniumenrichmentplant in Natanz and a heavy-water facility in Arak. Theevidence for an Iranian nuclear weapons program was later confirmedby International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors.In March 2007 the overall IRGC commander, Yahya Safavi, revealedthat the IRGC had been charged with overseeing Iran’s ballistic missileand satellite program. As Iran had bought 18 North Korean BM-25 long-range mobile missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads,the IRGC appears to be involved in developing an offensive nuclearcapability. Although the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iranissued by U.S. intelligence analysts on 3 December 2007 claimed