Iran’s IRGC Facing Leadership Void Following Deputy Commander’s Death

(New York, N.Y.) – On Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi, Deputy Commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, had died of heart disease. It is the most significant loss within the IRGC’s leadership since a U.S. drone strike killed Major General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Hejazi, who had served as deputy commander of the Quds Force for the past year, reportedly held most of the Quds Force field command responsibilities. The IRGC is a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. 

Hejazi was an early supporter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution and joined the IRGC soon after. Hezbollah’s Alahed newspaper describes him as “one of the most prominent veteran commanders of the IRGC.” During the 1990s, Hejazi served as the IRGC’s Lebanon official and is suspected of being involved in planning the July 18, 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people. Hejazi – acting as Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s intelligence and security adviser – was a key participant in the August 1993 meeting chaired by Khamenei, where the decision to bomb the AMIA center was approved. Later, in August 2019, Israeli military officials said Hejazi had become the “commander of Iran’s precision-guided missile project in Lebanon” and that he “directly commands Iranian personnel stationed in Lebanon.” 

Domestically, Hejazi played a decisive role in the crackdown against civilian protesters during the so-called “Green Revolution” – the 2009 popular uprising which erupted after President Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection. Under Hejazi’s command, the IRGC’s Basij Mobilization Forces and other forces under his command arrested and intimidated protesters, shot protesters with live ammunition and rubber bullets, and fired tear gas and pepper spray at them, and hit them with clubs, batons, and baseball bats. In response, Hejazi was sanctioned by the Council of Europe in 2011 for his role in “ongoing human rights abuses in Iran.” 

To read UANI’s profile, Mohammad Hejazi: Deputy Commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, please click here. 

To read UANI’s resource, IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), please click here. 

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