The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s elite military force, claims it can fight an intense war against the US and Israel for at least six months.
“The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are capable of continuing at least a 6-month intense war at the current pace of operations,” said Guards spokesperson Ali Mohammad Naini, according to Fars news agency.
IRGC, designated as a terrorist organisation, is the ideological military force of the Islamic Republic entrusted with preserving the future of the revolution and is often blamed for crushing anti-regime protests.
Touted as a pillar of the theocratic system by the “Mullah regime”, it is accused by the West of militant activity overseas and grave human rights violations at home.
Rights groups have accused the IRGC of leading the deadly crackdown on protests against Iran’s clerical leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that left thousands dead.
Known in Iran as the “Pasdaran” (“The Guards”) or simply as “Sepah” (“The Corps”), the IRGC is a vast and intricate organisation whose branches reach into many aspects of Iranian politics and society as well as the military.
Its international unit, the Quds Force, whose then-chief Qasem Soleimani was killed in US military strikes in 2020, has been accused by the West of carrying out deadly attacks outside the country.
IRGC’s aim is “to propagate the ideas of the Islamic revolution”, said Clement Therme, a researcher at the International Institute of Iranian Studies.
“It’s an armed force that functions like an elite military with terrestrial, maritime, and aerospace capabilities, while it is better trained, better equipped, and better paid than the regular military,” according to a diplomat who did not wish to be quoted.
The IRGC also serves as Tehran’s link to its regional allies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and pro-Iran militias in Iraq. Their annual military budget is estimated at $6-9 billion, or 40 percent of Iran’s official military budget.
For on-ground implementation, the IRGC depends on the Basij, a force numbering in the hundreds of thousands, which is recruited mainly from young Iranians and serves as an ideological organisation embedded across all institutions and levels of society.
A research paper published recently by Saeid Golkar and Kasra Aarabi of the US-based think tank United Against Nuclear Iran said a shadowy IRGC unit known as the Tharallah Headquarters, responsible for security in Tehran, was the “most critical cog in the IRGC’s security and suppressive apparatus”.
“It coordinates intelligence, policing, Basij militia, IRGC units and psychological operations, ensuring that repression is not improvised but calibrated,” said Golkar and Aarabi, adding that it “functions as the regime’s operational brain during moments of unrest”.
IRGC Faces Heavy Losses
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced early in the campaign that US forces destroyed the IRGC’s headquarters in Tehran, describing the strike as eliminating a central node of the organization’s command.
“America has the most powerful military on earth, and the IRGC no longer has a headquarters,” CENTCOM said in a statement accompanied by video footage of naval missile launches impacting an urban compound.
Israeli officials have estimated that approximately 1,000 to 1,500 IRGC members have been killed in the strikes so far. The targets included IRGC Ground Forces headquarters, Quds Force facilities, intelligence centers, missile sitballastoc es, and Basij facilities.
Strikes have also hit IRGC-linked facilities in Tehran, southwestern Iran, and other parts of the country, which have degraded air defenses, missile launchers, and IRGC naval assets.
Among the senior figures confirmed killed in the initial waves were Major General Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the IRGC Ground Forces, and other high-ranking officials
Tehran has acknowledged these deaths, though they have not provided a comprehensive casualty list. Despite massive setbacks, the IRGC has aggressively retaliated to US and Israeli military strikes under “Operation True Promise 4.”
IRGC has reported multiple waves of missile and drone strikes targeting U.S. military bases in the region, Israeli sites, and Gulf states like the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.
IRGC has called these strikes responses to the “aggression” and vowed protracted resistance, with statements warning that “the enemy will no longer be safe” and that attacks would intensify.
U.S. and Israeli officials have reported a sharp decline in the effectiveness of Iranian missile barrages—down by around 90% from initial levels—attributing this to strikes on launchers, command networks, and production facilities.
CENTCOM has also claimed the sinking of several Iranian naval vessels as part of a broader effort to neutralize Iran’s maritime capabilities under Operation Epic Fury.
U.S. officials have reported progressively higher figures for vessels struck or sunk, rising from nine announced by President Donald Trump on March 1 to over 20 by March 4, more than 30 by March 5, and up to 43 damaged or destroyed by March 7.
CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper provided detailed updates in briefings, stating on March 5 that U.S. forces had “destroyed over 30 ships” as of that afternoon.
“In the last few hours alone, we struck an Iranian drone carrier roughly the size of a World War II-era aircraft carrier, and it is currently on fire,” Cooper said, referring to the Shahid Bagheri, a converted vessel used for drone operations.
He added that “today, there is not a single Iranian ship underway in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, or Gulf of Oman, and we will not stop.”
In earlier statements, Cooper noted the sinking of specific vessels, including the IRGC Navy’s Shahid Sayyad Shirazi (a Soleimani-class corvette) and others.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed during a March 4 briefing that the IRGC Navy’s “prize ship” Soleimani was sunk the previous evening, and a U.S. Navy submarine torpedoed the Iranian Navy’s frigate, IRIS Dena, in the Indian Ocean.
“To hunt and kill an out-of-area deployer is something only the United States can do at this type of scale,” Cooper said regarding the Dena sinking.
CENTCOM released footage and images showing strikes on vessels like the Shahid Bagheri and the Shahid Sayyad Shirazi, with statements emphasizing the neutralization of both regular Iranian Navy and IRGC Navy forces.
“U.S. forces have decimated the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile capabilities and are sinking their naval vessels to the bottom of the sea,” a CENTCOM release stated ahead of a visit by Hegseth.
By ET Online Des & Agence France-Presse (AFP)
