Mohammad Ali Jafari

Mohammad Ali Jafari (, born 1 September 1957, also known as Aziz Jafari and Ali Jafari ) is an Iranian military officer who was the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from 2007 to 2019. He was appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on 1 September 2007, succeeding Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, and was replaced in 2019 by Hossein Salami.

According to a 2 September 2007 report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Farda, Jafari was close to the conservative subfaction, which included Mohsen Rezaee, the secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council and former commander of the IRGC and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former IRGC member and the mayor of Tehran. The replacement of Safavi was thought to be a move to strengthen the conservative faction as a counterweight to the radicalizers around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to whom Safavi was close.

Biography Jafari was born in Yazd and completed his primary and secondary education there. In 1977 he was admitted to Tehran University, where he studied civil (construction) technology. As a student, he participated in anti-Shah protests in Tehran, and was arrested and sent to jail for this. He represented his university department in the Islamic Organization of Tehran University. He was appointed to head "a strategic research center to map out new defensive and military strategies in response to what Iran's leadership has seen as evolving threats in the Middle East", according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Jafari is said to have formed many of his ideas on unconventional or asymmetric warfare at the research center.

On 2 September 2007, Radio Farda reported Jafari had extensive fighting experience and close relations with the commanders of the former Badr Brigades of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

Censorship and media repression Jafari oversaw the IRGC Intelligence Organization, which has been implicated in multiple crackdowns on media and free expression. This resulted in the arrest of several journalists, including Ehsan Mazandarani and Isa Saharkhiz. In addition, In February 2017, further arrests targeted Telegram users and journalists such as Hengameh Shahidi and Morad Saghafi. Jafari stated during a 2014 press conference: "As we have seen, in 1999 the Leader came out strongly against this sowing of doubt, and emphasized the need for the continuing existence of the IRGC for the continuation and advancement of the regime."

Crackdowns on civil and political activists Under Jafari's command, IRGC units were involved in mass detentions of students, activists, and lawyers. Events include the “Spider” operation in 2015 and 2016 targeted social media users and models on Instagram under morality charges. In addition, lawyers Qassem Sholeh Saadi and Arash Kaykhosravi were arrested in 2018 during peaceful activism.

Israel In 2015, Jafari declared that "The Revolutionary Guards will fight to the end of the Zionist regime." He added that Iran would "not rest easy until this epitome of vice is totally deleted from the region's geopolitics".

In November 2012, Jafari announced that Iran had provided Fajr-5 rocket technology to Hamas.

Sanctions On 29 September 2010, then–U.S. President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on eight Iranians, including Mohammad Ali Jafari, due to accusations of abusing human rights in 2009.

In 2011, the European Union and the UK imposed sanctions on Jafari for providing equipment and support to suppress protests in Syria.