The Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces (Persian: نیروی زمینی ارتش جمهوری اسلامی ایران, Niru-yē Zamini-yē Artēš-ē Žomhūri-yē Ēslâmi-yē Irân), acronymed NEZAJA (Persian: نزاجا, NEZEJA) are the ground forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army.

In 2007, the regular Iranian Army was estimated to have 357,000 personnel (167,000 conscripts and 190,000 professionals) plus around 350,000 reservists for a total of 700,000 soldiers according to the CSIS.

[5] Iran has two parallel land forces with some integration at the command level: the regular Artesh (Army), and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also known as the Sepâh (IRGC).

The original core of full-time troops and imperial body guards were called the Immortals, these were established in 580 BC by Cyrus the Great.

More often than not, provincial and tribal forces opposed the government's centralisation efforts, particularly because Tehran was perceived to be under the dictate of foreign powers.

Its primary task was to combat tribal forces allegedly stirred up by German agents during the First World War.

The Qajar palace guard, the Nizam, commanded by a Swedish officer, was a force originally consisting of 2,000 men, although it deteriorated rapidly in numbers because of rivalries.

Thus, during the First World War, the 24,400 troops in these four, separate, military units made up one of the weakest forces in Iranian history.

By 1920 it consisted of the Persian Cossacks; the Gendarmerie, expanded from two regiments that had stayed loyal; and the South Persia Rifles and the regular army, reduced to the Central Brigade in Tehran, with a theoretical strength of 2,200.

"[9] The defence of the Khorramshahr-Ahvaz area was put under the navy's Rear Admiral Gholamali Bayandor, with his sailors plus a brigade of the army's 6th Division.

London and Moscow had insisted that the Shah expel Iran's large German population and allow shipments of war supplies to cross the country en route to the Soviet Union.

Both of these proved unacceptable to Reza Shah; he was sympathetic to Germany, and Iran had declared its neutrality in the Second World War.

Iran's location was so strategically important to the Allied war effort, however, that London and Moscow chose to violate Tehran's neutrality.

In the absence of a broad political power base and with a shattered army, Mohammad Reza Shah faced an almost impossible task of rebuilding.

[6] There was no popular sympathy for the army in view of the widespread and largely accurate perception that it was a brutal tool used to uphold a dictatorial regime.

[citation needed] The small but more confident army that resulted from American training was capable enough to participate in the 1946 campaign in Azarbaijan to put down a Soviet-inspired, separatist rebellion.

During the three years of occupation, Stalin had expanded Soviet political influence in Azerbaijan and the Kurdish area in northwestern Iran.

Eventually, the town of Rahkyut, which the PFLO had long maintained as the capital of their liberated territory, fell to the Iranian task force.

"The rapidly growing Army Aviation Command, whose major operational facilities were located at Isfahan, was largely equipped with American aircraft, though some helicopters were of Italian manufacture.

In 1977 army aviation operated some sixty light fixed-wing aircraft, though its strength lay in its fleet of some 700 combat helicopters.

Immediately after the 1979 revolution a series of purges gutted the core of the army's Western trained senior commanders.

Between February and September 1979, Iran's government executed 85 senior generals and forced all major-generals and most brigadier-generals into early retirement.

A Central Intelligence Agency assessment of 7 November 1979 said that Iranian military capabilities '..had not recovered significantly since the collapse of the armed forces in the February revolution.

In addition, many junior officers were promoted to generals, resulting in the army being more integrated as a part of the regime by the war's end, as it is today.

In 1987, and on the verge of the end of the Iran–Iraq War, the Artesh was organised as follows:[6] and some independent armoured brigades including infantry and a "coastal force."

A new cadre of commanders, shaped by their experiences in the war, drastically reduced reliance on foreign supplied equipment and training.

Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments reports that the 23rd Special Forces Division is amongst the most professional formations in the Iranian Army, with at least 6,000 personnel, all of whom are believed to be regulars.

Globalsecurity.org says on its page on the Iranian Army:[24] Many of these assessments appear to be copyright violations from research conducted by the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, for example, an updated military balance report[permanent dead link‍] dated 2012.

(see also CSIS Iran and Gulf Military Balance, 11 July 2012, p51 Most soldiers of the Iranian Army are well trained and determined, but their equipment is outdated or obsolete.

The Zulfiqar is the defence industry of Iran's most recent main battle tank, named after the twin-pointed legendary sword of Ali.