Mohammad Bagheri

Overview

Mohammad Bagheri, also rendered Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, was chief of staff of the armed forces of Iran from June 2016 until his death on June 13, 2025. Appointed by Ali Khamenei, he stood below Khamenei in the Iranian regime’s military hierarchy and oversaw coordination between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the regular army. His office placed him at the center of strategic planning across forces with distinct commands and responsibilities. Israeli airstrikes against the regime’s military leadership killed him alongside several other senior commanders. Khamenei appointed Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi to succeed him that day.^[1][2]

Bagheri’s tenure spanned Iranian military operations and cooperation in Iraq and Syria, defense discussions with Russia and China, opposition to the 2017 Kurdistan Region independence referendum, and escalating confrontation with Israel. He represented the regime in meetings with foreign political and military leaders, while publicly defending its military tests and describing its readiness for offensive action. His statements also addressed Israeli strikes, the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and the regime’s intended response.^[3][4][5][6]

Early life

Bagheri was a veteran of the Iran–Iraq War. He later served as a commander in the IRGC before rising to lead the Armed Forces General Staff. His military career was accompanied by academic work: he earned a doctorate in political geography and taught at the Iranian regime’s Supreme National Defense University. Those roles formed part of the background he brought to the chief of staff position, which combined military planning with coordination among the regime’s armed institutions.^[2]

The available biographical record places particular emphasis on his wartime service, IRGC command and later general staff role. His appointment in June 2016 gave a former IRGC commander responsibility for coordination with the regular army. It also made him a senior representative of the armed forces in meetings concerning regional security and foreign defense cooperation. The United States sanctioned Bagheri in 2019 for holding a state position to which Khamenei had appointed him.^[2]

Career

Bagheri became chief of staff in June 2016. At a military parade that September, he declared that the Iranian regime would continue its scheduled military tests and war games without suspension or delay. He also said its forces were prepared for a rapid, forceful offensive against an enemy, while describing its position at the strategic level as one of not intending to strike first. These statements presented military readiness as a continuing priority early in his tenure.^[2][7]

On August 17, 2016, Bagheri met Iraqi national security adviser Faleh al-Fayad to discuss regional developments and bilateral relations. He credited Iraqi Shiite militias fighting alongside Iraq’s army with securing and stabilizing the country, and offered cooperation between the Iranian regime’s armed forces and the Iraqi army. The meeting connected his general staff role to the regime’s relationships with armed actors and state institutions in Iraq.^[3]

Bagheri also took part in the regime’s cooperation with Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war. During an October 2017 visit to Damascus, he delivered requests to Assad that included concessions for phosphate mining in Syria. He later traveled to Damascus for the signing of an agreement expanding military and technological cooperation between the Iranian and Syrian regimes. Assad met Bagheri in connection with the agreement, which followed years of coordination between the two regimes during the war. At the signing ceremony, Bagheri criticized Turkey over its implementation of commitments concerning armed groups under the Astana process.^[8][9]

In 2017, Bagheri warned of what he called the dangerous consequences of the Kurdistan Region independence referendum. He visited Turkey that August and met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish army chief Hulusi Akar. Iranian and Turkish officials subsequently discussed possible joint military action against Kurdish separatist plans in Iraq and Syria. Bagheri’s opposition to the referendum was thus expressed both in public warnings and in high-level contact with a neighboring government.^[6]

His foreign defense work extended beyond neighboring states. Bagheri traveled to Moscow in February 2019 to pursue defense-cooperation agreements with Russia. He also led an Iranian regime delegation to China for discussions about scientific and industrial defense cooperation. He offered Beijing a proposed 25-year defense-cooperation agreement endorsed by Khamenei. On February 11, 2025, he met Oman’s military chief, Vice Admiral Abdullah Al Raisi, in Tehran; they discussed strengthening defense cooperation. These visits and meetings made Bagheri a recurring participant in the regime’s military relationships abroad.^[5][10]

Bagheri continued to meet regional figures late in his tenure. On June 14, 2024, Nechirvan Barzani joined Masrour Barzani, Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani in meetings with him. Those contacts followed his earlier opposition to the Kurdistan Region referendum. They also illustrate the range of political leaders with whom he dealt while serving as chief of staff, even where his public position on a major regional question had been sharply opposed to theirs.^[6]

Ideology and statements

Bagheri’s public statements reflected the Iranian regime’s emphasis on military preparedness and confrontation with Israel. He used the term “active resistance” to describe its condition of neither war nor peace, language associated with Khamenei’s approach to prolonged confrontation. His declarations about continued tests, war games and readiness for a quick offensive gave that approach a military expression. In April 2017, he echoed an IRGC argument favoring an active defense of the Iranian Revolution rather than a posture limited to preserving established positions.^[7][11][12]

He repeatedly addressed Israel as an adversary. At an August 2024 ceremony introducing a new deputy chief of staff, Bagheri claimed that Israel faced existential danger. Referring to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of the terrorist organization Hamas, in Tehran, he declared that the Iranian regime would respond to Israel in a calculated manner. Later that year, he threatened retaliation that would exceed expectations and differ in its tactics, execution and weapons. These were Bagheri’s stated positions and threats, rather than descriptions of an operation he had carried out.^[4][13]

Bagheri also characterized the regime’s missile strike in October 2018 as the first stage of revenge for an attack in Ahvaz, and promised further stages. Across these statements, he presented military action as part of a continuing response to attacks and pressure on the regime. His language was consistent with his office’s role in planning across the armed forces, though the statements alone do not assign him command of every operation he discussed.^[7][11]

Role in attacks or conflicts

Bagheri’s principal documented conflict role was leadership and coordination within the Iranian armed forces. His service began with the Iran–Iraq War and included command in the IRGC. As chief of staff, he oversaw coordination between the IRGC and regular army while the regime supported Assad in Syria and maintained military relationships in Iraq. His Damascus visits and participation in the military and technological agreement placed him in the regime’s senior military cooperation with Assad during the Syrian civil war.^[2][3][9]

During fighting in eastern Ghouta near Damascus in 2018, Bagheri declared that the Iranian and Syrian regimes would continue their military campaign despite a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire across Syria. He stated that Iran and Russia had amended the resolution and described an exception for combat against groups including Jabhat al-Nusra. His remarks defended the continuation of operations in an area where the ceasefire’s application was a central issue. They also showed him speaking publicly for the regime’s military position in Syria.^[8]

The regime’s involvement in Syria had strategic and material dimensions. Its forces and partners had coordinated with Assad’s government through years of war, while Bagheri carried requests for phosphate-mining concessions to Assad in October 2017. The later military and technological agreement sought to deepen cooperation. Bagheri’s attendance at its signing and his meeting with Assad made his role visible at both the operational and diplomatic levels of the relationship.^[8][9]

His work in Iraq included contact with Faleh al-Fayad and support for Iraqi Shiite militias fighting alongside Iraq’s army. His opposition to the Kurdistan Region referendum concerned the future political status of a neighboring area and brought him to meetings with Erdoğan and Akar. In both settings, Bagheri’s position connected Iranian military policy to developments beyond Iran’s borders. He treated those developments as matters for direct engagement by the Armed Forces General Staff.^[3][6]

Bagheri also held responsibilities outside conventional military operations. During the coronavirus crisis, Khamenei placed him in charge of an armed forces health task force intended to coordinate the response. At its first meeting, Bagheri announced that authorities would clear streets of people within 24 hours; the president shortly afterward rejected reports of town lockdowns. The episode demonstrated how the regime assigned a senior military officer a role in a national civilian emergency, alongside other centers of authority.^[14]

Death or current status

Israeli airstrikes against the Iranian regime’s military leadership killed Bagheri on June 13, 2025. Among the other commanders killed were IRGC commander Hossein Salami, deputy commander Gholam Ali Rashid and IRGC aerospace chief Amir Ali Hajizadeh. The strikes removed several of the regime’s most senior officers in a single operation, including the man responsible for coordination between its principal military branches.^[1][15]

Khamenei appointed Major General Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi, previously commander of the regular army, chief of the Armed Forces General Staff on June 13, 2025. Mousavi succeeded Bagheri as chief of staff; other appointments filled vacancies left by commanders killed in the same strikes. Bagheri should be distinguished from a separate Iranian missile commander also named Mohammad Bagheri. The chief of staff was the former IRGC commander appointed in June 2016 and killed in June 2025.^[1][2]

Legacy

Bagheri’s nine years as chief of staff linked several defining aspects of the Iranian regime’s military policy: coordination of the IRGC and regular army, sustained cooperation with Assad during the Syrian civil war, military ties with Russia and China, and threats directed at Israel. His public record includes opposition to Kurdistan Region independence, support for Iraqi Shiite militias, defense of continued operations in eastern Ghouta and promises of a response after Haniyeh’s killing. Those roles made him a central figure in the regime’s military planning and regional relationships from 2016 to 2025.^{[2][3][4][5][6][8][9]}

His death formed part of the June 13, 2025 strikes on senior Iranian commanders. Mousavi’s immediate appointment preserved a chief of staff at the head of the general staff, while Bagheri’s death ended the tenure of an officer whose authority had crossed the regime’s regular and revolutionary military institutions. Accounts of the strikes identify him by that general staff office, distinct from the separate missile commander who shared his name.^[1][2][15]