Iranian Brigadier General Majid Khademi is assassinated

Brigadier General (according to some reports, Major General) Majid Khademi of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in an American-Israeli airstrike at dawn on April 6, 2026. Iranian state media and the IRGC officially confirmed his death, describing the attack as a "criminal terrorist attack carried out by the American-Zionist enemy" and his death as a "martyrdom."

This incident is reported amidst escalating conflicts in the region, referred to in Iranian publications as the "Third Imposed War." This assassination occurred as the American-Israeli-Iranian conflict entered its 5th or 6th week (approximately day 38), following Iranian missile attacks on Israeli cities like Haifa. Widespread airstrikes on numerous areas, including Tehran and its surrounding residential zones, resulted in collapsed buildings and infrastructure, with plumes of smoke visible above Tehran. Although the IRGC did not disclose Khademi's exact location of death, reports indicate he was killed in an attack targeting Iranian military and intelligence infrastructure. Related attacks that day, including those southwest of Tehran, killed at least 13 to 25 people, including children and other civilians. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has vowed to continue targeting Iranian leaders "one by one."

Khademi, with nearly five decades of experience in defense and intelligence, held doctoral degrees in national security and strategic defense science. Until his promotion to a senior position in 2025, he was a figure known primarily within intelligence circles and not widely familiar to the general public. He served as the head of IRGC intelligence from June 2025 until his death. Khademi was appointed to this position around June 19, 2025, after his predecessor, Mohammad Kazemi, was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the "Twelve-Day War" in June 2025. However, critics point out that despite Khademi's activity concerning internal security, the previous assassinations of Kazemi and and other senior IRGC leaders clearly exposed existing weaknesses in Iran's intelligence and counter-intelligence networks.

Previously, from 2022, he served as the head of the IRGC Intelligence Protection Organization (counter-intelligence and internal security division), where he was responsible for protecting the organization from espionage, infiltration, and internal threats, particularly from Israel and the United States. Even earlier, from 2018 to 2022, he also served as the head of the Information and Intelligence Protection Organization of the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. During his tenure as head of IRGC intelligence, he directly intervened to suppress protests within Iran and took strong measures against foreign conspiracies. He publicly stated that these protests recalled the instability of 1981 and were being exploited or directed by enemies such as America and Israel. Due to the IRGC's contribution to the violent suppression of protesters, the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on Khademi and others in January 2026. Although a political prisoner killed in the 1988 Isfahan massacres was also named Majid Khademi, historical records confirm that he and this IRGC general are two entirely different individuals in Iranian history.