NCRI – The Iranian regime has attempted to conceal the high rank of a military commander killed in Iraq by claiming he was a member of the paramilitary Basij Force.
Mehdi Norouzi – in reality a commander of the terrorist Qods Force Special Operations – was killed in Iraq on January 10, just days after the killing of IRGC Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi, also killed in Iraq on December 27.
But the state-run media in Iran has been claiming Norouzi was a member of the Basij Force whose body returned to Tehran before being buried in Kermanshah on January 14.
The Vatan Emruz daily paper on January 13 then identified him as a senior Qods Force commander, and the highest commander killed in Iraq since Brigadier General Taqavi.
The paper wrote: “After the martyr Brigadier General Seyyed Hamid Taqavi, now Mehdi Norouzi Bahari, one of the most courageous men of the revolution’s front, was honored with martyrdom in defense of the Samarra shrines on Saturday night.”
Norouzi – whose full name is Bijan Mehdi Norouzi Bahari – was one of the commanders of Khamenei’s bodyguards, shown in photos to be protecting Ali Khamenei during a trip to Kurdistan in the wake of the 2009 popular uprising.
He was also a plain-clothes commander in the suppression of the 2009 uprising, and using the pseudonym ‘Hossein Manif Ashmar’, he commanded the Lebanese Hezbollah forces who were used to crush the revolt, including the protest at College Bridge in Tehran on December 27, 2009.
12 June 2009
13 July 2009
He was also sent to command forces in Syria to prevent the downfall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Qods Force Commander Qasem Soleimani took him to Iraq at a later date following the fall of the cities of Mosul and Tikrit.
His death is being seen as a major blow to the regime’s apparatus of exporting terrorism and fundamentalism. The farewell ceremony arranged for him in Tehran reveals his indicates his importance to the regime.
Nourozi in Iraq
The Iranian regime usually arranges the burial of casualties from Syria and Iraq in the county where their families live. Only the bodies of commanders are brought to Tehran for a special farewell ceremony.
The IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency has reported that the burial ceremony for Mehdi Norouzi will be held on January 14 in Kermanshah ‘in the presence of military and security commanders, officials, clergy, Basij forces, honorable families of martyrs, veterans of the eight year sacred defense [Iran-Iraq war], and the Hezbollah people’.
Mullah Sheif Mostafa Olama, Khamenei’s representative in the province and Kermanshah’s Friday prayer Imam, will conduct the religious rituals for him, Fars said.
