Deputy commander of Iran’s Quds Force Mohammad Hejazi dies

Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi, the deputy commander of Iran’s Quds Force, has died, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced in a statement on Sunday.

Hejazi died due to a “heart condition,” the IRGC statement said, without elaborating further.

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Hejazi was appointed as the deputy commander of the Quds Force – the overseas arm of the IRGC – in January 2020 following the US killing of Iran’s top commander Qassem Soleimani.

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Born in the 1950s in the city of Isfahan, Hejazi joined the IRGC soon after it was established in 1979. Over the years, he occupied several key positions within the force, including commander of the IRGC’s Basij militia and deputy commander-in-chief of the IRGC.

Hejazi also commanded the IRGC’s Tharallah base in the capital Tehran in 2009, which oversaw the suppression of protests in the city that followed Iran’s controversial presidential elections that year.

The Council of the European Union added Hejazi to its sanctions list in October 2011 for playing a “central role in the post-election crackdown.”

Hejazi also commanded IRGC forces in Lebanon for some time, according to the IRGC statement.

In recent years, Hejazi assisted Iranian and Iranian-backed forces in Syria using his “valuable experience,” the statement said.