Hawzah News Agency- Martyr Major General Mohammad Bagheri held a PhD in political geography and geopolitics from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran. Alongside Martyr Major General Gholamali Rashid, he was a member of the founding board of the Iranian Geopolitical Association — individuals who, after the grueling eight‑year experience of war with the Ba'athist regime, turned to the field of knowledge. The combination of his empirical experience and academic training, together with Martyr Rashid, made him one of the architects of Iran's national security and defense.
Before assuming the position of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, he was a commander who worked largely out of the spotlight — yet he had another crucial dimension: intelligence experience. Before his appointment, he was a full‑fledged military and intelligence officer, carrying the qualities for which he was known: reserved, confident, decisive, and acting on the basis of verified, accurate intelligence. A distillation of all these traits could be seen in the footage released from the True Promise 2 missile operation — when, with complete confidence and without hesitation, he looked into the camera and detailed the operation, including the targeting of the Nevatim and Hatzerim air bases, the Mossad headquarters, strategic radar installations, and military staging grounds of the Zionist terrorist army around the Gaza Strip.
He embodied the complete character of a military commander — one who, through his performance on the battlefield and his strategic and intelligence mastery, demonstrated the solidity and depth of the military structure under his command. During the Sacred Defense, he served as the intelligence operations officer of the IRGC Ground Forces and the Karbala and Khatam al‑Anbiya (pbuh) Headquarters. He later became the head of the Intelligence Department, then Deputy for Intelligence and Operations of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and Deputy Coordinator of the Khatam al‑Anbiya (pbuh) Central Headquarters.
The reserved Iranian commander assumed the role of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in 2016, overseeing the strategic coordination of the Army, the IRGC, and the Law Enforcement Forces under a unified military and defense architecture. His brother recalls of Mohammad: "Even at family gatherings, he always had a book with him — whether on military affairs or historical subjects. He was deeply interested in the history of the world wars and often said he had read The History of the German Army in the War (The Third Reich) twice."
The mastermind of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran did not confine himself to military and defense pursuits alone. Activating the country's defense and military diplomacy line during his nine‑year tenure at the General Staff was another dimension of Martyr Bagheri's service to the nation. His travels to Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan were among the key achievements of his time in office. Born in 1960 in Tehran, he authored numerous articles on geopolitics and regional power, defense studies and military strategies, border management, and maritime law.
A former mechanical engineering student at Amir Kabir University of Technology, he was also placed on the US and Canadian sanctions lists. The modest commander, who as Deputy for Intelligence of the General Staff of the Armed Forces played a significant role in the IRGC's extraterritorial operations against terrorist groups during the 1990s, was ultimately martyred in the early morning of June 13, 2025, along with his wife Ashraf Afshurdi and his daughter Fereshteh Bagheri. He was laid to rest in Section 24 of Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, beside his renowned brother, Martyr Hasan Bagheri.
Source: KHAMENEI.IR
Your Comment