A senior Pasdar officer has been killed defending the shrine city of Samara in Iraq, Iranian media reported Monday.
The Tasnim news agency, believed affiliated with the Pasdaran, said Reza Hossaini-Moqaddam was in Samara to confront militants of the Islamic State (IS) when he was killed by a sniper February 7.
In December, the Pasdaran reported another senior commander was also killed by a sniper in Samara. He was Brigadier General Hossain Taqavi.
Hardline news sites reported that Moqaddam, whom they said was a veteran of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, was buried in Najaf. Tasnim said Moqaddam had requested in his last will to be buried in Wadi al-Salaam cemetery in Najaf.
The news reports referred to Moqaddam as a senior Pasdar commander, but did not say specifically if he was a general officer.
It isn’t clear how many Iranians have been killed fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and various rebel groups in Syria. The media have cited funerals for more than 15 members of the Pasdaran killed in Syria, including one who was captured last May and beheaded. But Radio Zamaneh, based in the Netherlands, reported last summer that more than 60 Pasdaran had been killed in Syria.
In Iraq, at least four Pasdaran have been killed since operations against the Islamic State began there last summer.
