Inside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp death cult: How henchmen brainwashed in 'violent and extremist' training camps oversee prison rapes and mass executions to maintain Iranian regime's stranglehold
In countless camps deep in rural Iran, gruff military men bark orders at trembling young cadets.
Boys as young as 13 are put through their paces by uncompromising tutors, who brainwash their pupils into hating all of Iran's enemies, planting a seed that grows into a fanatical and insular view of the world.
This is the beginning of the journey for the hardened rank and file of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a nursery where teens learn the ropes and become part of a 125,000-strong death cult.
Their job as adults is to keep a stranglehold on the 92 million people of Iran at the behest of the country's Supreme Leader. A function, rights groups say, that involves mass torture, execution and merciless repression of anyone who dares question the regime.
Testimony from within the ruthless organisation, which was created as the principal defender of Iran's 1979 revolution, is rare.
But beyond the victims that have tasted their notorious brutality, some voices have emerged.
Reza Kahlili, the pseudonym of a former IRGC officer who turned on Iran and spied for the CIA, revealed in an autobiography, as well as subsequent interviews, that he had witnessed countless horrors while working for the Iranian military.
'I witnessed the torture and the horror that this new regime was inflicting on Iranian citizens.'
The IRGC brutally imprisons and tortures Iranian citizens
The IRGC's officers and members have long been accused of regularly torturing and abusing Iranians in order to suppress any dissent, and overseeing prison rapes and executions (file image of an IRGC fighter)
In harrowing descriptions of his life inside the IRGC, he told of teenage girls being raped before they were executed 'because of the Muslim belief that virgins go to heaven'.
'Boys and girls were tortured in unimaginable ways and then executed,' Kahlili added in a 2011 interview.
He also saw the mass imprisonment of countless people across the country.
Referring to Iran's most infamous detention centre, where political prisoners, journalists and human rights activists are held, he said: 'Among the thousands taken to Evin prison were my best friend and his siblings.'
He added that the IRGC also killed the officers of Iran's deposed leader following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Kahlili said: 'There was also the mass killing of the shah’s officers without any hearings or legal processes.
'The Revolutionary Courts ordered their execution, and the Guards just lined them up and shot thousands of them.'
The IRGC, he added, was also in charge of torturing and executing 'morahebs' – so-called 'enmities against God' who dared to condemn Islam or reject Sharia law.
The ex-spy said: 'The authorities will torture you and kill you. Many brave souls have given their lives just to speak their minds on this matter. Thousands more are in jails right now across Iran for speaking against the establishment.'
Kahlili said watching and taking part in the horrific torture of his fellow countrymen was what made him decide to turn on his nation and spy for the CIA.
The ex-spook said: 'From day one, when I started these activities, everything I did was in hopes of this regime being overthrown.
'I saw that the regime is not only dangerous to the Iranian people, but that it is just a profoundly savage regime, a messianic regime, an evil regime.
Armed personnel of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) carry AK-47 rifles and march under an Iranian-made long-range surface-to-surface missile during a military rally in downtown Tehran, Iran, on January 10, 2025
'I saw that it was a danger to the stability of the whole region, and that if it succeeded in its efforts millions of Iranians and others could be slaughtered.'
According to the Tony Blair Institute, officers and members of the IRGC are indoctrinated in 'state-sanctioned Shia Islamist ideology, which is violent and extremist.
'The IRGC is committed to what it refers to as “ideological-political” training of recruits. The worldview within which this training is framed is extremist and violent,' according to the think tank.
It added: 'It identifies enemies – from the West, to Christians and Jews, to Iranians who oppose the regime – and advocates supranational jihad in the name of exporting Iran’s Islamic Revolution.'
It isn't just adults who are indoctrinated by the IRGC. According to the authors of The Rise of the Pasdaran, a report from the RAND Corporation, the IRGC runs brainwashing summer camps for children as young as 13.
These summer camps aim to prepare 'young Iranians to eventually assume the duties of armed auxiliaries to the IRGC in the regime’s homeland defence strategy'.
Administered by the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary force within the IRGC, 'the summer camps focus on providing young students with activities designed to inculcate them with a conservative, insular worldview, fortifying them against foreign cultural influences, such as satellite television and Internet Web sites'.
Many are held in rural provinces, with campsites set up in several small towns.
According to an Iranian colonel, in 2007 there were 160 camps set up in the province of Gilan alone, with an estimated 20,000 children attending.
But the IRGC and the Basij also runs paramilitary training across the country for current and potential members, again in an attempt to indoctrinate them.
This strategy has four aims in mind: to ensure as many Iranians take part in defending the homeland, to train them for disaster relief operations, to push the IRGC's values deeper into the minds of the population and to prepare Iranians to defend against so-called 'soft coups' by the West.
Attendees of these training camps are 'drawn from a broad spectrum of Iranian society – ranging from the rural classes and provincial tribes to students and factory workers', according to the report.
Despite all of this effort, the IRGC is believed to be 'under severe and accelerating internal strain'.
According to a source who spoke to the Daily Mail: 'There are many reports of IRGC soldiers being executed for desertion.
'It’s happening constantly. IRGC leaders are also regularly executing subordinates for refusing to carry out orders. This is not isolated turbulence but a nationwide condition.
'Personnel across multiple branches [of the Revolutionary Guard] have fled or attempted to flee. Manhunts have been launched for missing members, and families of those who fled have been placed under house arrest.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members pictured march on April 29, 2022
'Resignation requests across multiple provinces have been rejected outright, in some cases under explicit threat.
'The idea is that all this paves the way for uprisings in the future.
'When the smoke clears, people will be surprised at how degraded the regime’s machinery of terror is. It’s only a matter of time before it starts breaking down.
'No one seems to understand just how much trouble the regime is now in.'
The IRGC, established in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, was conceived as the regime’s ultimate guarantor, tasked with defending the new order and answering directly to the Supreme Leader.
Over time, it has evolved into one of the most powerful forces in Iran, extending its reach far beyond the country’s borders.
The IRGC backs militant groups across Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Yemen, forming what it describes as an 'axis of resistance' aimed at pushing back against Western and Israeli influence in the region.
Their violent suppression of protests in January 2026 triggered international condemnation, with the European Union and other major bodies designating it a terrorist organisation.
The anti-government protests were repressed in the deadliest crackdown in the Islamic Republic's history, with Tehran acknowledging that more than 3,000 people died during the unrest and attributed the violence to 'terrorist acts'.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), however, has recorded more than 7,000 killings, while warning the toll could be far higher.
The brutal crackdown also saw the deaths of more than 220 children, the agency said.
Other human rights organisations have tallied many more, and medical professionals have estimated that 30,000 could have been killed.
And now, the brutal regime corps have launched a killing spree in an attempt to clamp down on political dissidents and stop another uprising from unfolding during the current war.
Several top anti-regime figures were brutally executed in Iran this week, while many other political prisoners, including an 18-year-old, have been sentenced to death in recent days, according to an opposition group.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a political coalition formed by exiled dissidents, warned of a potential upcoming 'massacre' in the country's prisons as rattled leaders attempt to crush any notion of another mass uprising.
And amid the Iranian regime's security crackdown since the start of the war, armed teenagers have been ordered to patrol the streets of Tehran to maintain control.
Iranian authorities have confirmed they are recruiting children as young as 12 for paramilitary group patrols, traffic checks and other duties.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump claimed in a speech on Wednesday that while regime change in Iran was not his explicit goal, it has 'already occurred.'
Throughout the address, Trump sought to justify the ongoing military campaign by highlighting the Islamic regime's brutal history of violence against Americans, Israelis and its own citizens.
However, Trump did not provide any update on peace negotiations with Tehran or a concrete plan for a transition of leadership.
For many living under the repressive Islamic Republic, his words came as a shock, with one Iranian telling the Daily Mail: 'I heard from my family what the President said. We don't have any direction on what to do next, especially not from our own government,' she said.
'Iranians are hanging on to every word Trump is saying. I feel afraid… like we might be betrayed. We risked everything for freedom, including our lives. Was it all for nothing?'
'Trump's speech was a little disappointing,' another person inside Iran told the Daily Mail, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
'Because if they truly negotiated with the mullahs again, after three years when Trump will leave office, they are going to rise again and do their terrorist attack on our own people and the world.
'We need to see. Maybe the people of Iran should have another protest in the future.'
So as Trump scrambles for a peace deal, millions of Iranians living under the IRGC remain worried a 'near-victory' for the administration could still mean a devastating betrayal for those who say they risked everything for a chance at liberation.
