Basij

Founded by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 as a mass infantry militia for the Iran-Iraq War, the Basij operates under IRGC command and has evolved into Iran's primary instrument of domestic control. Its full name is Sazman-e Basij-e Mostazafin (Organisation for the Mobilisation of the Oppressed). The force suppressed the 2009 Green Movement, the 2019 November uprising, and the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, each time acting as the street-level enforcement Arm when regular police capacity was exceeded. Under the IRGC's "Decentralised Mosaic Defence" doctrine, the force has been restructured into 31 autonomous provincial commands, each capable of operating if central command is destroyed.

The Basij lost approximately 300 field commanders in a single week of Israeli strikes in March 2026, alongside its six-year commander Gholamreza Soleimani and intelligence deputy Esmail Ahmadi. The Decapitation campaign targeted the domestic enforcement layer that keeps the Islamic Republic in power. Hengaw documented Basij forces relocating into civilian spaces: schools, dormitories, and mosques in the days following. By June 2026, hardliner Basij militia members marched on Iran's foreign ministry in the early hours of 15 June to oppose the Ceasefire deal, demonstrating that the organisation remains capable of collective political action despite its officer losses.

The Basij is structurally central to post-Khamenei succession politics. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's position rests on Basij and IRGC loyalty; analyst assessments describe the Guards as controlling him rather than answering to him. If the Basij cannot maintain domestic order, the security architecture that installed Mojtaba collapses. Its parallel intelligence network with the IRGC Intelligence Organisation constitutes the two-layer domestic surveillance apparatus the Islamic Republic has used across every major protest cycle since 1999.