- According to the Iranian news agency Tasnim, Iran has mobilized more than a million fighters.
- Objective: to respond to a potential U.S. military offensive.
- Several media outlets report that Washington plans to send reinforcements to the Middle East.
Iran is preparing a ground counter-offensive. According to the Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Iranian government, citing a military source, on Thursday, March 26, authorities had mobilized more than “a million fighters” to counter a potential U.S. invasion. Is this a significant number?
According to Tasnim, the regime has called upon members of the regular army, as well as the Revolutionary Guards and Basij. While no independent media or institution has been able to verify Iran’s current troop numbers in 2026, especially after a month of war, it is known that the country has one of the largest armed forces in the region. The latest report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), published before the Israeli-American strikes, estimates around 610,000 military personnel.
The Revolutionary Guards, an “elite army”
Among them are 350,000 soldiers from the regular army, known as Artesh, along with 190,000 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). A Western diplomatic source speaking anonymously to AFP estimates the latter group at around 200,000 men. Beyond ideology, “it is an armed force that operates like an elite army with terrestrial, maritime, and aerospace means, but it is better trained, equipped, and paid than the regular army
,” emphasizes the source.
Another resource available to Iran is the Basij. Under the command of the elite forces of the Revolutionary Guards, this militia has around 600,000 members. It was created by order of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, shortly after the 1979 revolution. It consists mostly of civilian members, mobilizable when needed, and smaller but professional and armed units.
Has the regime formed a large “coalition” made up of members of the regular army, Revolutionary Guards, and Basij? The certainty lies in the emergence of the one million figure after reports by the Wall Street Journal and Axios. According to these American media outlets, the White House and the Department of Defense are considering sending at least 10,000 additional combat soldiers to the Middle East in the coming days.
This is to provide Donald Trump with more military options, as explained by the WSJ, citing officials from the Department of Defense. Meanwhile, the president has delayed his deadline for strikes on the Iranian energy sector by ten days, stating that discussions with Iran, whose capital has been heavily targeted by Israel on Friday morning, are “going very well.”
