Military news

At the request of a reader, we now take a brief look at two different elements of Iran's integrated air defense system (IADS). Introduction : On May 25 2014, the Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Headquarters (aka IRIADF) unveiled two new systems that they reported would soon enter production. [1] These were: 1) The Fakour command-and-control (C2) system, which is responsible for gathering, fusing, and distributing tactical information within the IRIADF's sectors. 2) The Rasool communications system, which is responsible for linking the Matla ul-Fajr radars with other elements of the air-defense network. Fakour : The Fakour is employed as a command-post for fusing and distributing sensor information at the tactical level. This means gathering data from a range of sources, which is reported to include active sources such as military and civilian radars, passive ELINT such as emission-finders, and air-defense units such as SAM batteries. This data is fuzed to produce a unified pictur...

In the fifth part of the 'Basij Organization' series, we now turn to one of the so-called special categories of Basij: the Shahid Shushtari Operating Bases (SSOB) in Iran's restive south-east. The first part in this series covers the Imam Hussein battalions. The second part covers the Beit al-Moqdas battalions. The third part covers the the Semnan province Basij. The fourth part covers the Imam Ali battalions Baluch Basij, pictured during the opening of a base in Qasr-e Qand Index : Index Abbreviations/Acronyms Intro Origin and Development External Organization Internal Organization Appendix: Shahid Shushtari Footnotes / Works Cited Abbreviations/Acronyms : BG – Brigadier General BG2 – Brigadier General, 2nd Class Cmdr - Commander Col. – Colonel HQ – Headquarters IRGC [-GF] – Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps [Ground Forces] MG – Major General SM [HQ] – Shahid Mamar [Headquarters] SSOB – Shahid Shushtari Operating Base S&B - Sistan va Baluchistan Intro : Since 2012...

With an increasing emphasis on power projection, the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN) is responsible for Iran's maritime security in the Caspian Sea, Gulf of Oman, and the greater Indian Ocean. The IRIN is organized into four or five naval regions, details about some of which are unclear. These administrative and/or operational divisions are believed to be largely equivalent to other services' 'regional headquarters'. 1st Naval Region – Bandar Abbas : The 1st region, as well as the IRIN's general HQ, is co-located with the IRGCN in Bandar Abbas. As of 11/2013, it is commanded by Vice-Admiral (hereafter, BG2*) Hossein Azad. [1] * This article employs generic nomenclature for titles (e. g. Brig. Gen. / Mag. Gen. ) rather than their naval-specific equivalents (e.g. Rear Admiral / Admiral ) in order to si mplify the issue a s much as possible, and make it clear which posit ions are equivalent to one another . 2nd Naval Region – Bandar Bushehr or Bandar Jask : Mul...

In the fourth part of 'Basij Organization' series, we look at the organization and role of the Imam Ali security battalions (IA bn). The first part of this series covered the Imam Hussein battalions. The second part covered Beit al-Moqdas battalions. The third part took a look at Basij in Semnan province. Imam Ali bn personnel, during a December 2013 exercise in Khuzestan Index : Origin Acronyms and Abbreviations Role Organization (external) Organization (internal) Footnotes Acronyms and Abbreviations : bn - Battalion BaM - Beit al-Moqdas [bn] IA – Imam Ali [bn] IH – Imam Hussein [bn] IRGC – Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Origin : The groundwork for the creation of the Imam Ali security battalion was laid in 2007 when Gen Ali Jafari was appointed to the position of IRGC commander in 2007. Jafari then initiated a well-known restructuring that included strengthening Basij response capabilities across a range of kinetic and non-kinetic domains, while also further integrat...

 In the following interview with the commander of Iran's Army Ground Forces - BG Pourdastan - he doesn't offer any groundbreaking revelations when it comes to Iran's security policy, but he does offer a handful of noteworthy comments. First, he describes the existence of political-security red-lines "far from Iran's borders". This isn't a new trope in Tehran's lexicon, but is important in the continued recognition of the fundamentally trans-national nature of Iran's national-security. Whether it's Tehran's concerns in the Levant, or Moscow's desire for a glacis in eastern-Europe, or Washington's continued hegemony over the Caribbean Basin, national security is never just national. Second, he couches the rise of ISIS within the same historical processes that account for Tehran's interpretation of the post-Soviet political scene, and the resulting 'future war' framework that encompasses the so-called soft, semi-hard, and h...

Index : Acronyms and Abbreviations Introduction  Headquarters Components Appendix : Personnel Structure and Commander IMINT Footnot es/Works Cited Acro n yms and Abbreviations : AB: Armored Brigade Army: Term of art that refers specifically to the ' Artesh' (aka. the regular-armed-forces). Distinct from 'Army' as a general reference either to a nat io n's ground forces, or armed forces in general BG: Brigadier General BG2: Brigadier General, 2nd -Class CB: Commando Brigade Col.: Colonel  HQ: Headquarters  IB: Infantry Brigade IRIA: Islamic Republic of Iran Army (AKA , Army Grou nd Forces, or NEZAJA )  IRIADF: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Defense Force ( AKA, Khat am ol-Anb i ya Headquarters ) IRIA F: Islamic Re public of Iran Air Force MIB: Mechanized Infantry Brigade      Introduction : The third part in this series covers the Army's Northeast Operations Headquarters, which is based in Mashhad, and borders Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan. The fi...