Quds Force
(The Qods Force, a special operations wing of Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps)
The Quds Force (Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem), is a special unit of Iran's Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. The Federation of American Scientists, in a document from 1998, says the primary mission of the Quds Force is to organize, train, equip, and finance foreign Islamic revolutionary movements. It further states that the Quds Force maintains and builds contacts with underground Islamic militant organizations throughout the Islamic world.
(The Qods Force, a special operations wing of Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps).
History:
The Quds Force was created during the Iran-Iraq war as a special unit from the broader Pasdaran forces. After the war, Quds Force continued to support the Kurds fighting Saddam Hussein, during the war it had helped the Kurds fight the Iraqi military. The Quds also expanded their operations into other areas, most notably aiding Ahmed Shah Massoud's Northern Alliance against the Soviets during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and then helping Massoud after the war against Taliban forces. There were also reports of the Quds forces lending support to Muslim Bosnians fighting the Serbs during the Yugoslav wars.
According to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad helped found Quds Force while he was stationed at the Ramazan garrison near Iraq during the late 1980s.
Organization:
According to former U.S. Army intelligence officer David Dionisi, Quds force is organized into eight different directorates based on geographic location:
Western countries
Iraq
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India
Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan
Turkey
North Africa
Arabian peninsula
Republics of the former USSR
In addition, Dionisi writes in his book, American Hiroshima, that the Iranian Quds Force headquarters for operations in Iraq was moved in 2004 to the Iran-Iraq border in order to better supervise activities in Iraq. All Quds Force operatives were removed from Iraq in August 2007 because of fears by Iran's government that a Quds Force operative's capture might be a trigger for a US attack on Iran's nuclear sites. The Quds Force also has a headquarters based in the former compound of the US Embassy, which was overrun in 1979.
Independence and talent:
While it reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran, there are debates over how independently Quds Force operates.
Mahan Abedin, director of research at the London-based Center for the Study of Terrorism (and editor of "Islamism Digest" journal), believes the unit is not independent at all: "Quds Force, although it's a highly specialized department, it is subject to strict, iron-clad military discipline. It's completely controlled by the military hierarchy of the IRGC, and the IRGC is very tightly controlled by the highest levels of the administration in Iran."
Quds Force is considered by some analysts as "one of the best special forces units in the world," according to a Los Angeles Times report. In Abedin's view, "
t's a very capable force their people are extremely talented, [and] they tend to be the best people in the IRGC."
Recent activities:
The Quds Force trains and equips foreign Islamic revolutionary groups around the Middle East. The para-military instruction provided by the Quds Force typically occurs in Iran or Sudan. Foreign recruits are transported from their home countries to Iran to receive training. The Quds Force sometimes plays a more direct role in the military operations of the forces it trains, including pre-attack planning and other operation-specific military advice.
