Special Unit of NEDSA ( fa, یگان ویژه ندسا), also known as Sepah Navy Special Force (S.N.S.F.) ( fa, نیروی ویژه دریایی سپاه), is a Takavar unit in the

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...

(IRGC) Navy stationed in the Greater Farur Island of

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bo ...

Mission set

The unit has

marines Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refl ...

frogmen A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some European countries, police work. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver, comb ...

and

sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...

s specializing in

heliborne A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

amphibious warfare Amphibious warfare is a type of offensive military operation that today uses naval ships to project ground and air power onto a hostile or potentially hostile shore at a designated landing beach. Through history the operations were conducted ...

and

naval boarding Naval boarding action is an offensive tactic used in naval warfare to come up against (or alongside) an enemy marine vessel and attack by inserting combatants aboard that vessel. The goal of boarding is to invade and overrun the enemy personne ...

. SNSF personnel train in combat diving, direct action, counterterrorism, special reconnaissance, underwater demolitions, amphibious assault, hostage rescue, and maritime visit, board, search, and seizure (VBSS) operations. Among the unit’s missions is to protect Iranian commercial vessels, and SNSF personnel have deployed to the Gulf of Aden to assist with Iranian counterpiracy operations. This article incorporates public-domain text from this source.

Operations in Gulf of Aden

In 2012, the unit performed a 117-days operation in

Gulf of Aden The Gulf of Aden ( ar, خليج عدن, so, Gacanka Cadmeed 𐒅𐒖𐒐𐒕𐒌 𐒋𐒖𐒆𐒗𐒒) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Chann ...

to fight

piracy off the coast of Somalia Piracy off the coast of Somalia occurs in the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel and Somali Sea, in Somali territorial waters and other surrounding areas and has a long and troubled history with different perspectives from different communities. ...

. The unit has collaborated with the American forces in the operation, for instance an American

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk is a four-blade, twin-engine, medium-lift utility military helicopter manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft. Sikorsky submitted the S-70 design for the United States Army's Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System ( ...

did

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

for the unit's boat.

Weapons

The Iranian produced Tondar SMG (

Heckler & Koch MP5 The Heckler & Koch MP5 (german: Maschinenpistole 5) is a 9x19mm Parabellum submachine gun, developed in the 1960s by a team of engineers from the German small arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch. There are over 100 variants and clones of the MP5, ...

) 9mm is known to be used by the unit. The Spanish produced Star Model Z84 sub-machine gun is also favored by the unit. The Iranian produced AKM 7.62x39mm is also used by the unit in some situations.

AK-103 The AK-103 is a Russian assault rifle designed by small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov. History The AK-103 was officially offered for export in March 1993 Design details It is an AK-100 derivative of the AK-74M that is chambered for t ...

is used by this force.

Gallery

File:IRGC naval execise-2015 (11).jpg, Takavar members in Great Prophet IX maneuver, 25–27 February 2015 File:IRGC naval execise-2015 (2).jpg, An IRGC

frogman A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some European countries, police work. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver, com ...

in an amphibious exercise of Great Prophet IX File:IRGC naval execise-2015 (7).jpg, File:IRGC naval execise-2015 (1).jpg, File:IRGC naval execise-2015 (6).jpg,

References

Special forces of Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Naval special forces units {{iran-mil-stub