Esfandiar Saffari

The commander in chief of the Passdaran Corps Ground Forces announced the ‎commissioning of 600 new combat units, the Imam Hossein Brigades, across the country. ‎General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi stressed that these units would be commissioned on the ‎basis on population sizes across the residential areas of the country.‎

Sobh-e Azadeghan publication belonging to the Political Bureau of the Passdaran ‎Revolutionary Guards Corps published this news in its latest issue, quoting the ‎commander in chief of the Passdaran Corps Ground Forces, and announced, “With the ‎goal of raising real combat levels and the readiness of the ground forces, Imam Hussein ‎brigades will be commissioned across the country to connect the combat units with the ‎unlimited Basij resources through training, organization and utility of the Basij to achieve ‎a 1 to 3 ratio.”‎

Speaking to a group of unit commanders of the ground forces and national mobilization ‎units, General Zahedi who is in charge of the Passdaran Ground Forces explained the ‎rationale for commissioning these new units to be, “Critical Security Conditions” and ‎‎“Foreign Interventions,” adding that “Imam Hussein brigades shall be positioned on the ‎fringes of resistance units and in proportion to populated areas of the country and in ‎consideration of their make up, and their principal mission shall be the combat training of ‎Basij in preparation for confronting the critical and organized security conditions, and the ‎foreign interventions.”‎

He said that the specialty of the brigades would be to train them in the local terrain, ‎adding, “Passdar-Basij would be the make-up of these units and the training that each ‎shall receive shall be relevant to the terrain where they will be positioned.”‎

The commander stressed that by the end of the Iranian year 1387 (March 2009) more ‎than 600 Imam Hussein brigades will be established and added, “Among the key features ‎of this plan are the following: the determination of the needs; setting up of the training ‎calendar based on the distribution of the Basij forces; creating the complimentary detailed ‎training implementation among the commander of the units and the resistance regions; ‎the cooperation of the resistance regions in the use of the bases and camps and the centers ‎of the ground forces; and the cooperation of the resistance force in using the trainers of ‎the Basij in this training.”‎