The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a statement earlier this month to announce the death of its Quds Force deputy head, Brigadier General Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi from “heart disease” but there has been speculation online, including from the son of another dead IRGC commander, that this is not accurate.

Muhammad Mehdi Hemmat said: “I just want to say that the cause of death was not a heart condition. My leader, this soldier of yours [was] sacrificed for you.”

However, he did not offer another cause of death and the Iranian Resistance say that if the regime was lying, they would be covering up something that could damage the regime.

Hejazi was a major player in Iran’s malign foreign activities long before he assumed the post, indeed serving in one IRGC branch or another since 1998 and becoming a leading figure in supporting the Bashar Assad dictatorship. This indicates that there would have been almost as much justification for his possible assassination as Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani back in January 2020.

But that’s not the biggest issue. The subject of our article is actually Hejazi’s replacement, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh who also helped prolong the Syrian Civil War and committed various crimes under Solemaini.

The 59-year-old began his career during the Iran-Iraq war, where he commanded the IRGC’s 33rd Al-Mahdi Division, before moving on to command IRGC forces in Yazd, Isfahan, and Fars, as well as the IRGC’s Karbala Camp.

In June 2020, Fallahzadeh, who was serving as the IRGC’s second-in-command in Syria, told Fars News Agency that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s goal in Syria was preventing the collapse of the Assad dictatorship, even though the official party line is that Iran was advising troops at most and primarily defending holy shrines.

He said: “From the first day of Eid until about September 1, 2015, we had continuous fighting and operations in the area around Idlib. The forces of Soheil Hassan and our units, Mohajer and Hezbollah from the beginning of 2015 to the end of August in the region of Idlib and south of Idlib from Mustuma, Jericho, and Jasr al-Shughur and the whole of Sahl al-Ghab were engaged in hard and sometimes hand-to-hand fighting.”

Fallahzadeh sat in on the “Astana talks” in Kazakhstan, over Syria’s future, along with the official representative of the Iranian government and senior assistant to the foreign minister Hossein Jaberi Asari. He was introduced as an advisor to the foreign minister, even though he was representing paramilitary interests.