Forces in the Iranian revolutionary guards are beginning to feel “doubt and confusion” after almost five months of anti-regime demonstrations, senior officers have admitted.
Compounding this sense of frustration is their pay. The salaries of IRGC soldiers are a quarter of their counterparts in Lebanon’s Hezbollah forces, Iran’s most powerful Middle East proxy, according to sources.
The 125,000-strong IRGC has carried out a brutal crackdown against protesters across the country, killing at least 528 civilians and imprisoning tens of thousands more, rights groups say. Seventy IRGC soldiers are believed to have died.
