The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, Persian: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی) is a principal branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, operating separately from the regular military. The IRGC’s Quds Force serves as Iran’s primary instrument for coordinating proxy militia operations across the Levant, including drone warfare campaigns against U.S. and Israeli targets.
On 28 July 2028, IRGC-coordinated militia forces launched the first large-scale coordinated drone swarm attack on U.S. bases in the Middle East, striking at least seven installations across Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and the UAE with an estimated 180 to 240 one-way attack drones. The strikes destroyed multiple high-value air defence systems — including an AN/TPY-2 radar and a Patriot PAC-3 battery — and demonstrated that Iran’s drone production capacity (3,000–5,000 airframes per year) could sustain attrition rates that U.S. interceptor stockpiles could not match at prevailing cost-exchange ratios (3.8 million interceptor).
By early 2029, the IRGC had expanded its drone programme into a second tactical domain: the Kaviyan-3 fiber-optic FPV strike drone, assembled from commercially sourced components at three Iranian facilities (Isfahan Science and Technology Town, Pardis Technology Park) at a rate of 4,000 units per month. The Kaviyan-3’s single-mode optical fibre guidance — sourced from Chinese manufacturers and re-spooled at an IRGC aerospace facility in Isfahan — rendered it immune to electronic warfare. Deployed by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the drone destroyed an estimated 140 Israeli armoured vehicles between October 2028 and February 2029, halting the IDF advance at the Litani River. IRGC Aerospace Force commander Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh publicly articulated the programme’s logic: “What they cannot do is cut a piece of glass. Physics does not permit it.”
In December 2032, following the Israeli airstrike on the Shahid Motahhari school in Minab that killed 106 people, the IRGC announced and executed Operation Truthful Promise III, launching approximately 400 ballistic missiles and 1,100 drones toward Israeli territory, damaging the Nevatim Air Base, Palmachim Aerospace Complex, and Port of Ashdod.