Death of Quds Force deputy commander stirs up confusion in Iran
The latest death of the deputy commander of Quds Force, Mohammad Hejazi, is still a mystery.
Some
people say Hejazi was killed in the battlefield in Syria, Iraq or Yemen.
Others, however, say that his death is connected with a series of internal
assassinations.
Hijazi's
death comes as rival security agencies in Iran, especially the Revolutionary
Guard Corpse and the intelligence, arrest the members of each other.
Growing
confusion
A
son of Mohammad Ebrahim Hemmat, a commander of the Revolutionary Guard who was
killed in the war in Iraq, said Hejazi did not die from a heart attack as the Revolutionary
Guard claimed.
He described
him on Twitter as a "martyr".
An Iranian
opposition journalist said, meanwhile, that this may be proof enough that
Hejazi was killed in either Iraq or Syria.
"We only
have to wait and see," the journalist said.
A hashtag and
a statement
Iranian
activists launched the "Martyr Hegazi" hashtag, which is usually
launched in Iran following the death of military commanders in military
confrontations.
Chief of Staff
of the Iranian army Mohammad Bagheri also
described Hejazi as a "martyr".
Nevertheless,
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei did not describe the man in the same way.
Positions
Hejazi assumed
a large number of positions following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He was
the commander of the Basij force for ten years. In 2007, the Iranian supreme
leader appointed him as the chief of staff of joint operations at the
Revolutionary Guard Corpse.
In 2008,
Hejazi became the deputy commander of the corpse. He accompanied the late Quds
Force commander Qasem Soleimani in most of his travels to Syria.
