Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has appointed a new deputy commander for its Quds Force unit following the death last Sunday of Mohammad Hejazi, one of the Iranian military force’s top commanders.
Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Fallahzadeh, a senior IRGC commander not well known to media, was nevertheless an important aide to the late Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in an American drone attack in January 2020. Soleimani was replaced as commander of the IRGC by Brig.Gen. Esmail Ghaani.
Fallahzadeh previously served as deputy coordinator for the Quds Force, the overseas arm of the IRGC and has been a main Iranian commander in Syria.
Speaking at a conference on Thursday in Isfahan to honor the memory of his predecessor, Fallahzadeh rattled the Iranian saber at the Jewish State, warning the “Israeli regime that the resistance forces are in the proximity of its bases all over the world,” Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported.
In his address, Fallahzadeh also warned the “usurping Zionist regime” that “Resistance forces are pushing the Israeli regime closer to downfall in every moment,” and referenced remarks by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who he quoted as saying “The Zionist regime will not exist by the next 25 years, a number of which have already passed.”
Iranian officials initially said Hejazi died due to heart failure; however, IRGC spokesperson Ramezan Sharif said Monday he died from health complications caused by exposure to chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War, according to Al Arabiya.