Iranian Armed Forces
combined military forces of Iran
The Iranian Armed Forces, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, are the military forces of Iran. It consists of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army (Artesh), the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Police Command.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies has estimated since 2023 at least that the regular armed forces, the Artesh, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are made up of approximately 570,000 active-duty personnel plus 350,000 reserve and trained personnel that can be mobilized when needed, bringing the country's military manpower to about 920,000 total personnel. These numbers do not include the Police Command or Basij.
The IRGC was established as a separated and parallel military force after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It was established by a decree of May 1979. The IRGC is tasked with safeguarding the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic and defending the regime against internal and external threats. It operates its own ground, naval, and air units, as well as the elite Quds Force, which is responsible for extraterritorial operations. The IRGC functions independently of the Artesh and often holds significant influence in strategic, security, and economic affairs within the country.
Both the Armed Forces and the IRGC provide essential security functions for Iran and coordinate regularly.
“Iranian Armed Forces” enters the record as combined military forces of Iran. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Iranian, Armed and Forces can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2609135. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023 and 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iranian Armed Forces” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.