NCRI – Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani, the most senior General in charge of the Iranian regime’s forces fighting in Syria to keep dictator Bashar Assad in power, was killed on Thursday evening on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo, the Iranian regime’s state media announced on Friday. Hamedani was a deputy to Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. The following is a brief about his background:
- He was a top commander of the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. His positions included Deputy Operations Commander of the Quds Garrison.
- Following Israel’s attack on Lebanon in 1982, the IRGC Mohammad Rasoulollah Division was dispatched to Syria and then to Lebanon. Hamedani, as one of the commanders of this Division, went to Syria and Lebanon.
- Hamedani received two Fath medals from the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for his role in the Iran-Iraq war.
- In the mid-1990s he was appointed Chief of Staff of the IRGC Ground Forces.
- During the 2009 popular anti-regime uprising in Iran, on November 14, 2009, Hamedani was appointed as commander of the IRGC Mohammad Rasoulollah Corps in charge of cracking down on anti-regime demonstrations in Tehran.
- As the civil war in Syria intensified and the threat of the overthrow of dictator Bashar Assad became more serious, Hamedani handed over command of the IRGC Mohammad Rasoulollah Corps to IRGC Brig. Gen. Kazemini and took control of all IRGC forces in Syria. He was the commander of all of the Iranian regime’s forces in Syria for the past three years.
- In Syria he operated under the pseudonym Abu Wahab.
- While in Syria, Hamedani dispatched pro-Assad forces to Iran for training on a monthly basis. Each month on average 50 pro-Assad forces were sent to Tehran and went through a month-long intensive command training by the IRGC Quds Force.
- As the top commander of all IRGC forces in Syria, Hamedani pursued his plans directly with IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and travelled to Iran regularly to coordinate their plans.
- Hamedani was also in charge of organizing and commanding all the regime’s non-Iranian forces who were dispatched to Syria, including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq from Iraq, Hezbollah from Lebanon, and Fatemiyoun forces from Afghanistan.
Following the announcement of Hamedani’s death, Shahin Gobadi of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, or MEK) said:
“This development once again demonstrates the significance for the clerical regime of maintaining Assad in power and the extent of the direct involvement of the religious dictatorship ruling Iran in suppressing and murdering the Syrian people. Without Tehran’s all-out involvement, Assad would have been overthrown long ago. It is becoming more evident that after four years of crimes and massacres in Syria, the clerical regime’s strategy there has run aground and is facing serious defeat.”