Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on Friday that its spokesman, Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naini, was killed by U.S. and Israeli air strikes during Operation Epic Fury.
The IRGC released an angry statement on Friday saying that Gen. Naini was “martyred in the criminal cowardly terrorist attack by the American-Zionist side at dawn.”
Naini was killed just a few hours after his final appearance on Iranian state television, during which he declared Iran’s missile industry “deserves a perfect score” because “even under wartime conditions, we continue missile production.” He was evidently responding to a claim by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran “no longer has the capacity to enrich uranium and manufacture ballistic missiles.”
Earlier in the week, Naimi insisted President Donald Trump’s claim to have wiped out most of the IRGC navy was false.
“The Strait of Hormuz is completely under the management of the IRGC navy and Iran has complete sovereignty. Doesn’t Trump say that he destroyed the Iranian navy? So if he dares, he can send his ships into the Persian Gulf region,” the IRGC spokesman said.
Naini, either 68 or 69 at the time of his death according to various reports, was appointed as the chief spokesman for the IRGC by its commander in chief, Maj.Gen. Hossein Salami, in 2024.
Naeini’s extensive background in psychological warfare was reportedly one of his top qualifications for the job. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) referred to him as “the IRGC’s main propagandist” when announcing his death on Friday.
Before becoming IRGC spokesman, Naini served as “cultural deputy” for both the IRGC and its thuggish militia, the Basij. He was also a combat veteran of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. In addition to his military career, he was a professor of social sciences at Imam Hossein University in Tehran, an institution linked to the IRGC. He was placed under sanctions by the government of the United Kingdom in October 2024, including a freeze on his assets and a travel ban, for promoting IRGC threats against Israel.
The IDF said the strike that eliminated Naini was conducted by the Israeli Air Force, using intelligence provided by Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate.
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