The head of the Basij unit within Iran's Armed Forces General Staff, Asadollah Badfar
By Bernie,
The head of the Basij unit within Iran's Armed Forces General Staff, Asadollah Badfar, has been killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes, Iran International reports, with his funeral held in Qom on March 9. Badfar was in charge of leading the Basij forces responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters during the mass demonstrations in January 2026, the largest since the 1979 revolution.
His killing is part of a deliberate Israeli strategy to target not just military commanders but the regime's internal enforcement apparatus. The IDF has stated that Basij and internal security forces are a primary target of the campaign, describing them as "a central arm in the suppression of the civilian population in Iran, responsible for carrying out cruel and systematic violence." Two senior Basij student leaders at Tehran University and Amirkabir University were also killed in precision strikes earlier in the conflict.
Topics: Iran, IDF
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