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.

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.

Born in 1956 in the city of Isfahan, Hejazi joined the IRGC in 1979. He headed the IRGC’s Basij militia for over 10 years and was the IRGC deputy commander in 2008.

Hejazi was also the commander of the IRGC’s Tharallah base in 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.”