An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer commanding a Tehran security phalanx was gunned down outside his home on Tuesday, a semi-official news site reported, as Iran marked the third anniversary of the assassination. of the dark general Qassem Soleimani.
Qassem Fethallahi was shot four times outside his home in an attack described as a “terrorist attack”, the Iranian news site Tasnim reported.
According to the outlet, which is closely linked to the IRGC, Fethallahi was an officer of Greater Tehran’s Mohammad Rasulullah Guards, a division of the IRGC that merged with the Basij militia, a volunteer paramilitary branch of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Both the IRGC and Basij have played leading roles in the brutal suppression of protests at the behest of the Iranian regime.
Fethallahi was a commander of the headquarters in Tharallah, a central IRGC hub for directing security operations in and around the capital, according to Tasnim.
No group has taken responsibility for the murder.
The attack came amid months of anti-government protests that were violently suppressed by Iranian security forces. The protests, now entering their fourth month, were sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, detained for allegedly breaking the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. They have since turned into calls for the downfall of Iran’s clerical rulers, posing one of the most serious challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 revolution.
Iranian media reported that a member of the Revolutionary Guards was killed in a shooting outside his house in the capital #Tehran.
According to the “Tasnim” news agency, the deceased officer was called “Qasim Fateh-Illah”, and he is the commander of the headquarters of “Thar Allah”.#Context #Iran pic.twitter.com/VsCTgg0hdf
– Background (@alsyaaq) January 3, 2023
A handful of Basij and IRGC members have been killed in the protests, and dozens have been put to death for these killings. According to Amnesty International, Iran executed at least 314 people in 2021, more than half the total number of state executions recorded in the Middle East that year.
Fethallahi’s killing came at the end of a day that has seen Iran hold several commemorations for Soleimani, with Iranian officials vowing to avenge his killing.
Soleimani, 62, head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, was killed on January 3, 2020, during a flight by a US MQ-9 Reaper drone. He was beaten on his way from Baghdad International Airport.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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