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Iran
Operations
The first operations commander of the Pasdaran was Abbas Zamani
(Abu Sharif), a former teacher from Tehran. A graduate of the
College of Education (Islamic Law Section), Zamani was one of
the founders of Hizballah in 1971. As early as 1970, when he first
traveled to Beirut, he established contacts in Lebanon with the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and various guerrilla
groups there. Unverified reports have claimed that the Pasdaran
has received organizational and training assistance from the PLO,
but no Palestinians were known to have visited the Aliabad or
other Pasdaran training grounds. Khomeini and his supporters in
Iran, as well as many other Iranians, have continued to support
the Palestinians, however. For example, PLO leader Yasir Arafat
was one of the first world leaders to visit Tehran after the Revolution;
he opened a diplomatic mission in what formerly had been the Israeli
embassy.
The Pasdaran has been quite active in Lebanon. By the summer
of 1982, shortly after the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon,
the Pasdaran had nearly 1,000 personnel deployed in the predominantly
Shia Biqa Valley. From its headquarters near Baalbek, the Pasdaran
has provided consistent support to Islamic Amal, a breakaway faction
of the mainstream Amal organization that contemplated the establishment
of an Islamic state in Lebanon. The secular Baathist Syrian regime
has found the Pasdaran presence in Lebanon alternately helpful
and threatening. In 1987 the Pasdaran's alleged involvement in
anti-American terrorism in Lebanon remained difficult to confirm.
By September 1980, the Pasdaran was capable of deploying forces
at the front. Initially, the forces were sent to conduct operations
against Kurdish rebels, but before long they were deployed alongside
regular armed forces units to conduct conventional military operations.
Despite differences, the Pasdaran and the regular armed forces
have cooperated on military matters.
The Pasdaran was also given the mandate of organizing a large
people's militia, the Basij, in 1980. In a 1985 Iranian News Agency
report, Hojjatoleslam Rahmani, head of the Basij forces of the
Pasdaran, was quoted as stating that there were close to 3 million
volunteers in the paramilitary force receiving training in some
11,000 centers. It is from Basij ranks that volunteers have been
drawn to launch "human wave" attacks against the Iraqis, particularly
around Basra. More recently, the Pasdaran, on Khomeini's instructions,
has initiated the training of women to serve the Revolution.
Data as of December 1987
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