From what looks to strike an almost unbearably heavy blow to the Iranian military establishment, Israeli officials say Major General Mohammad Pakpour, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in today's precision airstrike. Iran has not yet officially confirmed his death, but intelligence reports have put it that Pakpour was at a high command and control centre when it was leveled.
A Succession of Losses
If confirmed, Pakpour’s death would mark the second time in less than a year that Iran has lost its premier military leader to Israeli action.
- June 2025: Pakpour was appointed to lead the IRGC following the death of his predecessor, Hossein Salami, who was also killed in an Israeli airstrike.
- February 2026: Pakpour, now 8 months into his tenure, seems to find himself facing a similar fate amid this escalation.
“The Scrambling of a Network of Clients.”
With Pakpour, and his ouster, military analysts say the removal is bigger than merely a symbolic win. As head of the IRGC, Pakpour sat at a hub for an extensive patronage network and proxy management. "Decapitation strikes such as this do much more than get rid of leaders; they paralyze all decision-making mechanisms," one regional security expert noted. "Every soldier beneath him now faces the problem of a vacuum, and the IRGC's efforts to organize a retaliatory 'Crushing Response' are already at their limits."
Multiple High-Value Targets
Pakpour was not the only individual facing the crosshairs today. Israeli officials, too, have said that some other senior regime figures may have been swept up in the wave of strikes of the same nature, including:
- The Minister of Defense
- The Chief of Intelligence
- President Masoud Pezeshkian (Status is unconfirmed)
Tehran’s Response
And while state media in Iran has admitted “cowardly strikes” on military infrastructure and reported significant civilian casualties. An example was a terrible bombing in a school in Minab, the state organization remains remarkably silent about the status of its top generals. Normally, it takes the regime several hours even days to verify the death of such high-ranking officials to keep up public morale and domestic tranquility.
What’s Next?
The loss of Pakpour arrives at a time when the Iranian regime is already fighting off internal criticism at home and witnessing its own decline. With the "finger on the trigger" rhetoric having been unable to avert one strike after another, the question remains whether the IRGC can regroup and mount a coordinated counter-attack or if this marks the beginning of the end for the current military structure.
