Majid Khademi, the head of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), has been killed in US-Israeli strikes, the Guards said. The military agency did not elaborate on where its intel head died, but the reports come as multiple airstrikes targeted residential areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, on Monday.
“Major General Majid Khademi, the powerful and educated head of the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was martyred in the criminal terrorist attack by the American-Zionist enemy… at dawn today,” said the Guards in a post on their Telegram channel.
Khademi took over for General Mohammad Kazemi, who Israel killed in the 12-day war in June.
According to the statement, Khademi has recorded “significant, enduring, and instructive contributions over nearly half a century of sincere and courageous guardianship of the revolution, the system, and the Islamic homeland in the fields of intelligence and security.”
The IRGC noted that his efforts can serve as a guiding light for the country’s intelligence community for many years to come, especially when “confronting foreign enemies at strategic levels.”
The Guard’s intelligence organisation wields vast powers in Iran and answers only to the country’s supreme leader. It often has been linked to the detention of Western nationals or those with ties abroad. It also has been accused of carrying out extraterritorial killings and attacks targeting opponents of the country’s theocracy.
25 Dead In Iran
Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Iran on Monday, killing more than 25 people. Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbours, as US President Donald Trump’s deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz loomed with mediators circulating a new ceasefire proposal.
Explosions rang out across Tehran on Monday as low-flying jets flew over the capital. Thick black smoke rose near the city’s Azadi Square after one airstrike hit the grounds of the Sharif University of Technology.