A Commander of the IRGC: We Do Not Have Training Bases in Any Country

The deputy of the IRGC's officer training academy denied reports that this military force has training bases in other countries. Brigadier General Ahmad Mehraban, in an interview published on Tuesday, July 31, acknowledged that 'volunteer and popular forces' in regional countries, such as Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq, are trained under the supervision of IRGC instructors. He attributed the denial of having IRGC bases in other countries to 'recent claims by Israeli media,' but did not specify which Israeli media outlet published the news. This IRGC official stated: 'Regarding the recent claims by Israeli media that Iran has training bases in some regional countries, the Quds Force also does not have training centers in other countries, and even in Syria, they use the local barracks for advisory purposes.' As one of the two major supporters of Bashar al-Assad's government, the Islamic Republic has been present in Syria since the beginning of the civil war in the form of forces that even after more than six years still refer to themselves as 'advisory forces.' The term 'advisory forces' refers to military personnel who are responsible for advising and training the Syrian army forces and do not directly engage in combat. Meanwhile, especially in the past year, there have been numerous reports of the deaths of Iranian and Afghan forces affiliated with the IRGC in the country's media, and funeral ceremonies have been held in several cities in Iran for these fallen forces. Reports indicate that more than two thousand individuals under the title of 'Defenders of the Shrine' have been killed in Syria. Tehran's assistance to Bashar al-Assad's government has repeatedly been criticized by several regional countries and the West. Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic has rejected these criticisms. The Tasnim news agency states that the Imam Hussein Officer Training and Guarding Academy was established in 1986 with five specialized faculties and with the mission of training the personnel needed for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.