“After the ceasefire last April, I left my military base on the outskirts of Tehran under the pretext that my son was ill, and I never returned,” says an officer holding the rank of major in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in an interview with Alhurra.
The officer, Murad (a pseudonym), who is of Azerbaijani origin, says that he fled about two weeks ago with his family overland to Azerbaijan. He is among thousands of Revolutionary Guard members who have been leaving their positions daily since the outbreak of the war between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other.
Murad requested that his real name not be disclosed for his safety and that of his family.
He says: “The Guard’s commanders and senior officers hide in safe areas far from the bombing, along with their families, while they throw us—lower-ranking officers and personnel—into the fire inside bases they know will be bombed. They use us as human shields. And they do not stop there—they arrest officers and soldiers who criticize their actions, fabricating espionage charges against them,” he adds.
Alhurra was able to speak with Murad by phone after numerous attempts to establish contact, involving four local intermediaries and two leaders from the Iranian opposition.
Murad indicates that his fear of arrest increased in the days before his escape, when a unit from the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence arrested 20 officers and soldiers among his colleagues on charges of cooperating and communicating with Mossad, taking them to an unknown location. He noted that those arrested had demanded improvements in the meals provided at the base and consideration for the conditions faced by officers and personnel during the war and under heavy airstrikes.
“I am currently living with my father’s relatives in Azerbaijan. My psychological state is unstable, and I fear being pursued here by the Quds Force and Iranian intelligence. I hope the ruling regime in Iran comes to an end so that I can return again,” he adds.
Alhurra also contacted another officer, holding the rank of colonel in the Revolutionary Guard, who had likewise fled Iran overland to Turkey last month. Despite agreeing to an interview, he withdrew and apologized at the last moment for fear that the Quds Force would discover his location in Turkey.
Leaders in the Iranian opposition told Alhurra that thousands of officers and soldiers have defected since the beginning of this year from the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij for various reasons. Some of these relate to their opposition to the Guard’s decisions to open fire on protesters, and their refusal to participate in field operations in Kurdish areas, Ahvaz, and Baluchistan.
Others fled out of fear of being targeted by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, after the killing of most of the Guard’s veteran and current commanders. Another group defected due to declining salaries and reduced benefits that had previously been granted to them.
The same sources confirm that defectors who leave Iran temporarily settle in neighboring countries, with Azerbaijan, Armenia, Afghanistan, and Turkey being the main destinations. Some fled through Afghanistan to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, while others are hiding inside Iran.
Jamil Ahmadi, a Kurdish political activist in opposition who resides in Europe, confirms that the number of defectors is very large. However, the authorities’ shutdown of the internet for more than two months and the state of militarization in Iran prevent complete information about these defections from reaching the outside world.
“The defectors from the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij come from both generations—the older generation with higher ranks of lieutenant colonel and above, and the newer generation of lower ranks, personnel, and soldiers, who are the majority of those defecting so far. Most of them defected to avoid accountability for not carrying out orders or duties assigned to them during the war, especially those related to internal repression,” Ahmadi told Alhurra.
According to Ahmadi, many defectors who are unable to leave Iran have taken refuge in regions and cities other than their own, out of fear of security pursuit.
The Revolutionary Guard is an ideological force parallel to the Iranian army, tasked with protecting the ruling regime and “exporting the revolution abroad.” Ruhollah Khomeini decided to establish this force three months after coming to power in Iran in 1979.
Over more than 47 years of rule under the current system of the Supreme Leader in Iran, the Revolutionary Guard has grown from a small force into a complex intelligence network combining ideology, weaponry, politics, and economics. Its work is not limited to Iran; its operations and branches extend across the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Europe.
The Revolutionary Guard possesses ground, naval, and air forces, as well as aerospace forces that oversee and control Iran’s missile program. Iran’s nuclear program also falls under its authority.
The Guard had maintained cohesion and avoided defections in past years. However, with escalating internal conflicts among factions within the Iranian system and within the Guard itself, and with the dominance of the hardline current that believes in resolving conflicts by force over the Guard’s leadership, campaigns of purges and arrests have been launched—according to information provided by Iranian activists inside the country to Alhurra—by the hardline faction against rival wings. As a result, many within those factions have been forced to leave Iran for fear of being eliminated.
“Coinciding with the start of the defections, many officers were subjected to arrest, including those who left their military positions, while others were arrested while attempting to flee the country. The Guard’s intelligence, particularly its hardline wing, began wide-ranging investigations with detained officers, executed them secretly, and arrested many of the defectors’ families,” explained Qassem Abd, a member of the leadership of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, to Alhurra.
Abd points out that the extremist system of the Islamic Republic is facing a set of deep crises that place it before a fracture affecting the core institution upon which the system of the Supreme Leader has been built for more than four decades.
Abd believes that the U.S. and Israeli military strikes that targeted Iran over the past two months did not only leave material damage but also created a psychological shock within the security apparatus. When sensitive sites are targeted and supposedly protected fortifications are breached, difficult questions begin to arise within the ranks: Who leaked? Who failed? Who has been exposed? And who will be next?
Since the establishment of the Revolutionary Guard, its top leadership has been linked to the Iranian Supreme Leader. Khomeini was the founder of the Guard, and after his death, leadership passed to Ali Khamenei, whose death was announced in a joint U.S.-Israeli attack on a site in Tehran at the beginning of this March.
Therefore, specialists and observers of Iranian affairs who spoke to Alhurra believe that the absence of the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, from the scene may also be a major reason behind the defections taking place within the Guard—especially amid the military and political confusion Iran is experiencing following intensive air and missile strikes by the United States and Israel over forty days of war that began on February 28.
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
