Basij Rapid Reaction Force Holds Yet Another Maneuver in Tehran

Rooz Online

A month after some 5,000 Basij militiamen held a training exercise in six provinces of Iran, there are reports now that another maneuver with 13,000 elements from units of the Basij and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) will be held in Tehran this week. According to Mizan news agency affiliated to the country’s judiciary, this exercise will be held on April 16 and 17 and units known as Beytolmoghadas (Bethlehem) brigades will participate the latest tactics to perform rapid reaction activities against an imaginary enemy target.

The news agency writes that 52 units from the Basij and IRGC forces will take part in “mosaic layered defense,” entrapment and counter-entrapment operations in addition to airborne tactics. Revolutionary Guard Corps general Ahmad Zolghadr, who is the deputy commander of the Mohammad Rasool Allah force of Greater Tehran told Mehr news agency that the purpose of the exercise was to provide “training, organization, increased combat readiness, continuous communications with Basij militiamen, and the use of local and national resources of units that support combat missions with the participation of 12,000 militiamen from rapid reaction brigades.”

Several times a year the IRGC holds civil defense exercises in urban centers using Basij militiamen. But Basij militiamen are not used exclusively in training exercises and are time times mobilized to hold pro-government or pro-IRGC rallies around the country as well. For example, it is said that Basij militiamen were used in the recent demonstrations in front of the embassy of Saudi Arabia to protest the country’s involvement in Yemen’s civil conflict and the mistreatment of two Iranian haj pilgrims. Earlier, the same militiamen were used to demonstrate support the government’s conclusion of a ‘framework’ agreement in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 2nd.