The Islamic Jihad Organization, was a Lebanese Shia militia known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also called Sepah or Pasdaran, is a multi-service primary branch of the Iranian Armed Forces. It was officially established by Ruhollah Khomeini as a military branch in May 1979, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. Whereas the Iranian Army protects the country's sovereignty in a traditional capacity, the IRGC's constitutional mandate is to ensure the integrity of the Islamic Republic. Most interpretations of this mandate assert that it entrusts the IRGC with preventing foreign interference in Iran, thwarting coups by the traditional military, and crushing "deviant movements" that harm the ideological legacy of the Islamic Revolution. Currently, the IRGC is designated as a terrorist organization by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and the United States.
The Quds Force is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War General Stanley McChrystal describes the Quds Force as an organization analogous to a combination of the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the United States. Responsible for extraterritorial operations, the Quds Force supports non-state actors in many countries, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Yemeni Houthis, and Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. According to Michael Wigginton et al., the Al-Quds Force is "a classic example of state-sponsored terrorism."
Mohammad Hossein-Zadeh Hejazi was a Iranian military commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Hassan Abbasi is an Iranian conspiracy theorist and an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer who heads its think-tank 'Center for Borderless Security Doctrinal Analysis'. Abbasi is primarily known for his conspiracy theories, and for delivering controversial speeches on issues including economics, history, politics and cinema.
Numerous civilians, including men, women, children, government officials, activists, secular intellectuals and clerics have been victims of assassination, terrorism, or violence against non-combatants, over the course of modern Iranian history. Among the most notable acts of terrorism in Iran in the 20th century have been the 1978 Cinema Rex fire and the 1990s chain murders of Iran.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been accused by several countries of training, financing, and providing weapons and safe havens for non-state militant actors, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other Palestinian groups such as the Islamic Jihad (IJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). These groups are designated terrorist groups by a number of countries and international bodies such as the EU, UN, and NATO; however, Iran considers such groups to be "national liberation movements" with a right to self-defense against Israeli military occupation. These proxies are used by Iran across the Middle East and Europe to foment instability, expand the scope of the Islamic Revolution, and carry out terrorist attacks against Western targets in the regions. Its special operations unit, the Quds Force, is known to provide arms, training, and financial support to militias and political movements across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen.
Cyberwarfare is the use of computer technology to disrupt the activities of a state or organization, especially the deliberate attacking of information systems for strategic or military purposes. As a major developed economy, the United States is highly dependent on the Internet and therefore greatly exposed to cyber attacks. At the same time, the United States has substantial capabilities in both defense and power projection thanks to comparatively advanced technology and a large military budget. Cyber warfare presents a growing threat to physical systems and infrastructures that are linked to the internet. Malicious hacking from domestic or foreign enemies remains a constant threat to the United States. In response to these growing threats, the United States has developed significant cyber capabilities.
The Syrian Electronic Army is a group of computer hackers which first surfaced online in 2011 to support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Using spamming, website defacement, malware, phishing, and denial-of-service attacks, it has targeted terrorist organizations, political opposition groups, western news outlets, human rights groups and websites that are seemingly neutral to the Syrian conflict. It has also hacked government websites in the Middle East and Europe, as well as US defense contractors. As of 2011, the SEA has been "the first Arab country to have a public Internet Army hosted on its national networks to openly launch cyber attacks on its enemies".
The Iran–Israel proxy conflict, also known as the Iran–Israel proxy war or Iran–Israel Cold War, is an ongoing proxy war between Iran and Israel. Iranian leaders have predicted Israel's demise and called for its replacement by a single Palestinian state, describing it as an illegitimate "Zionist regime" supported by the West to colonize Muslim land. Israel interprets this attitude as a threat of destruction, leading it to seek to undermine Iran and bring about international military action against it.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Syrian Arab Republic are close strategic allies, and Iran has provided significant support for the Syrian government in the Syrian civil war, including logistical, technical and financial support, as well as training and some combat troops. Iran sees the survival of the Syrian government as being crucial to its regional interests. When the uprising developed into the Syrian Civil War, there were increasing reports of Iranian military support, and of Iranian training of the National Defence Forces both in Syria and Iran. From late 2011 and early 2012, Iran's IRGC began sending tens of thousands of volunteers in co-ordination with the Syrian government to prevent the collapse of the Syrian Arab Army; thereby polarising the conflict along sectarian lines.
The Iranian intervention in Iraq has its roots in the post-2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and allies when the infrastructure of the Iraqi armed forces, as well as intelligence, were disbanded in a process called "de-Ba'athification" which allowed militias with close ties to Tehran to join the newly reconstituted army.
Jaish ul-Adl, or Jaish al-Adl, is a Sunni militant and Baluchi separatist organization that operates mainly in southeastern Iran, where there is a substantial concentration of Sunni Baluchis and a porous border with Pakistan.
Cyberwarfare is a part of Iran's "soft war" military strategy. Being both a victim and wager of cyberwarfare, Iran is considered an emerging military power in the field.
The Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency is an ongoing low-intensity asymmetric conflict in Sistan and Baluchestan Province between Iran and several Baloch Sunni militant organizations designated as terrorist organizations by the Iranian government. It began in 2004 and is part of the wider Balochistan conflict.
2016–present clashes in West Iran refers to the ongoing military clashes between Kurdish insurgent party Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which began in April 2016. Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) and Komalah expressed their support to the Kurdish cause of PDKI as well, with both clashing with Iranian security forces in 2016 and 2017 respectively. In parallel, a leftist Iranian Kurdish rebel group PJAK resumed military activities against Iran in 2016, following a long period of stalemate.
Mohammad Hussein Tajik was the former commander of the Iranian Cyber Army, and a member of the Quds Force. He was detained and tortured following allegations that he leaked information to the Iranian Green Movement. He is believed to have been assassinated in his home.
The 2017 Tehran attacks were a series of two simultaneous terrorist attacks that occurred on 7 June 2017 that were carried out by five terrorists belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against the Iranian Parliament building and the Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini, both in Tehran, Iran, leaving 17 civilians dead and 43 wounded. The shootings were the first terrorist attacks in Tehran in more than a decade, and the first major terror attack in the country since the 2010 Zahedan bombings.
On 22 September 2018, a military parade was attacked by armed gunmen in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz. The shooters killed 25 people, including soldiers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and civilian bystanders. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Iran since the Chabahar suicide bombing in December 2010.
The 2022 Erbil missile attacks occurred on 13 March 2022 when multiple ballistic missiles were launched by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from East Azerbaijan province, Iran, against the city of Erbil in Kurdistan Region, Iraq.
