Ruhollah Bazgandi

Ruhollah Bazghandi is an Iranian brigadier general. He is a senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He is a former chief of the corps' counterintelligence department. In October 2024, he was charged, along with six other Iranian operatives, as part of an alleged plot to kill the New York-based Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad.

Key roles and activities

Counterintelligence leadership Bazghandi has served as a counterintelligence official within the IRGC-IO, where he has been involved in detaining foreign prisoners in Iran and conducting counterespionage operations.

Assassination plots Bazghandi has played a central role in assassination schemes targeting journalists, dissidents, Israeli citizens, and others deemed adversaries of Iran. Notably, he was charged by the U.S. in connection with a plot to assassinate Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist living in exile in New York City.

The plot involved hiring members of an Eastern European criminal organization to carry out the assassination.