5th Nasr Division ( fa, لشکر 5 نصر, or ''lashkar-5-Nasr'') is one of the Divisions of
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 ...
. It is also known as the ''Sepah-e Nsar Corps''.
Formation and the Iran–Iraq War
The unit was formed from troops of
Khorasan province in 1982 during the
Iran–Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Counci ...
before the preliminary moves of
Operation Dawn. Its first commander was Hassan Bagheri Afshardi. Hassan Bagheri was in charge of the division for only 10 days before being killed in action. At the start of 1983, under the command of Morteza Ghorbani, the division took part in the capture of Mehran during Operation Dawn-3. The division went on to take part in Operations Badr, Memak,
Dawn-8,
Karbala 4 and
Karbala 5. Commanders during this time included
Esmail Qaani
Esmail Qaani (also spelled as Ismail Qaani fa, اسماعیل قاآنی or ; born 8 August 1957) is an Iranian brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and commander of its Quds Force — a division primarily responsible for ex ...
and
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.
Subsequent history
After the Iran–Iraq War, the unit was based in
Mashhad
Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of Razavi Khorasan Province and has a po ...
, near the border with Afghanistan.
Alongside the
Hekmatyar network, under the leadership of Brigadier Gholamreza Baghban the division played a role in the exfiltration of
Osama bin Laden's fighters and family from Afghanistan in the aftermath of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Former commanders
*
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf
References
{{Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Military units and formations of Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution
Divisions of Iran