Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has grown into a powerful force within the country's theocracy, answering only to its supreme leader and overseeing its ballistic missile arsenal and launching attacks overseas. The force is again in the spotlight as Iran widens its attacks across the Middle East following the start of a US-Israeli airstrike campaign that's already killed the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Here's what to know about the Guard. Born out of a revolution ------------------------- The Guard rose out of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force meant to protect the country's Shiite cleric-overseen government and later became enshrined in its constitution. It operated parallel to Iran's regular armed forces, growing in prominence and power during a long and ruinous war with Iraq in the 1980s. Though it faced possible disbandment after the war, Khamenei granted it powers to expand into private enterprise, allowing the force to thrive. The Guard r