Who was Mohammad Kazemi, the IRGC's chief intelligence officer killed by Israel?

Israel killed another one of Iran’s leading military commanders on Sunday during its third day of exchanging attacks with Tehran, amid an intensified escalation of the arch foes’ proxy war.

Mohammad Kazemi, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Intelligence Protection Organisation is the latest high-profile military chief to be killed by Israel, after it struck several buildings in Tehran on Sunday.

Kazemi and his deputy Hassan Mohaghegh were reportedly trapped under rubble after Israel struck an IRGC Intelligence Organisation building in the Iranian capital, according to Israeli and Iranian reports.

A third IRGC intelligence officer, Mohsen Bagheri, was also killed in the attack.

His death was confirmed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and later confirmed by Iran’s semi-official news agency, Tasnim. The IRGC said the three were "assassinated as martyrs".

Who was Kazemi?

Born in 1961 in Semnan, east of Tehran, Kazemi was an active member of the Revolutionary Committees formed by Ruhollah Khomeini to suppress dissent in the 1980s and later joined Iranian intelligence.

Kazemi was considered one of the most prominent security figures in Iran, having commanded the IRGC’s intelligence services for years.

The service’s head is seen as a figure close to the Iranian Supreme Leader, giving him tremendous influence within the Iranian power structure.

The intelligence officer and brigadier general served as the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Intelligence Protection Organisation since at least 2013.

Before he was appointed head of the Intelligence Service, Kazemi served as head of the Revolutionary Guards' Information Protection Organisation.

In 2022, Kazemi was named as the organisation's chief of intelligence, taking over from Hossein Taeb, who was dismissed after an alleged plot aimed at targeting Israeli tourists in Turkey was botched, which ultimately led to a diplomatic rift with Ankara.

The IRGC's Intelligence Protection Organisation is mainly tasked with combating domestic espionage and preventing the disclosure of information outside the institution. It also monitors the influence, behaviour, and activities of the IRGC and its personnel.

Little is known about Kazemi, nicknamed 'Hajj Kazem,' as IRGC intelligence heads are instructed not to engage with the media and refrain from making many public appearances due to the sensitive nature of their role.

Additionally, very few photographs of Kazemi have been published over the years. The Mashregh News website, which is close to the IRGC, published one of the first known images of Kazemi several years ago among a group of military, security, and intelligence leaders.

According to the US Treasury Department, however, the intelligence chief was "responsible for managing and coordinating the suppression of protests, monitoring and restricting internet access, and arresting dissidents", specifically in the wake of the 2022 Iranian anti-government protests.

Kazemi was sanctioned by the United Kingdom in October 2024 over "hostile activity on behalf of the Iranian government against Israel" and for "threatening, planning, conducting attacks against Israeli nationals".

The sanctions were in response to Iran’s attacks on Israel during that period, at the time seen as Tehran’s largest attacks on Israel in the backdrop of the war in Gaza.

Israel and Iran have been engaged in conflict since early Friday, after Tel Aviv launched a series of deadly attacks targeting nuclear sites, military installations and residential buildings in the biggest escalation yet between the regional arch-foes and the biggest of its kind on the country since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

In its attacks, Israel has killed a number of high-profile military commanders and personnel, as well as nuclear scientists, including army chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri, IRGC commander-in-chief Hossein Salami and Major General Gholamali Rashid, commander of the IRGC's Khatam al-Anbia headquarters.