Iranian defense industry

Iran's military industry manufactures various types of arms and military equipment. According to Iranian officials, the country sold $100 million worth of military equipment in 2003. and as of 2006 had exported weapons to 57 countries. Iran's military industry, under the command of Iran's Ministry of Defense, is composed of the following main components:

Security of Telecommunication and Information Technology (STI) is also part of the Iranian defense industry.

Iran's military industry was born under the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1973, the Iran Electronics Industries (IEI) was founded to organize efforts to assemble and repair foreign-delivered weapons. Most of Iran's weapons before the Islamic revolution were imported from the United States and Europe. Between 1971 and 1975, the Shah went on a buying spree, ordering $8 billion in weapons from the United States alone. This alarmed the United States Congress, which strengthened a 1968 law on arms exports in 1976 and renamed it the Arms Export Control Act. Still, the United States continued to sell large amounts of weapons to Iran until the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In 1977, the Iranian Defense Industries Organization began to work on missiles jointly with Israel in Project Flower and requested a joint missile development program with the United States which was rejected. In 1979, the country took the first step into manufacturing by reverse engineering Soviet RPG-7, BM21, and SA-7 missiles.

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