Wary Iran readies for guerrilla war if U.S. invades

Borzou Daragahi, Special to the Post-Gazette:

Iran has begun publicly preparing for a possible U.S. military attack, announcing efforts to mobilize recruits in citizens' militias and making plans to engage in the type of "asymetrical" guerrilla warfare which has bogged down American troops in neighboring Iraq.

"Iran would respond within 15 minutes to any attack by the United States or any other country," said an Iranian official close to the conservatives who run the country's security and military apparatus. ...

Newspapers have announced efforts to increase beyond 7 million the number of "Basiji" militia, which were deployed in human wave attacks against Saddam Hussein's army during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. ...

One Western military expert based in Tehran said Iran was sharpening its ability to wage a guerrilla war.

"Over the last year they've developed their tactics of asymmetrical war, which would aim not at resisting a penetration of foreign forces, but to then use them on the ground to all kinds of harmful effect," he said, on condition of anonymity.

Iran is also attempting to give the impression that it is bolstering its conventional forces. Last December, Iran announced its largest war games "ever," deploying 120,000 troops as well as tanks, helicopters and armored vehicles along its western border. More recently, the Iranian press reported that the air force had received orders to engage any plane that violates Iranian airspace, just after reports emerged that American spy drones were monitoring Iran's nuclear sites. ...

Iran's intelligence agencies have extensive overseas experience, experts say, and its highly classified Quds forces, which answer directly to Iranian leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are believed to have operations in Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Turkey, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and North Africa, as well as Europe and North America, according to a December 2004 report prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Within minutes of attack, Iran's air and sea forces could threaten oil shipments in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. Iran controls the northern coast of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which oil tankers must navigate to get out of the Persian Gulf, and it could sink ships, mine sea routes or bomb oil platforms to block it.

Iran also could activate Hezbollah militia in Lebanon to launch attacks on Israel. Operatives could attack U.S. interests in Azerbaijan, Central Asia or Turkey.

"Iran can escalate the war," said Hadian. "It's not going to be all that hard to target U.S. forces in these countries." ...

Despite rising tension, Iran remains quiet and there is little public evidence of a military call-up. It is unclear whether most young Iranian men -- more materialistic and middle class than the generation that fought for eight years against Iraq in the 1980s -- would fight with much enthusiasm against the United States. ...