Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh, also known as Abu Baqer, was appointed by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force on April 19, 2021. Under the IRGC, Fallahzadeh was deployed to Syria as a military commander. The deployment allegedly resulted in him becoming “one of five main Guard commanders in charge of the 2014-2016 battle of Aleppo.” Based on Fallahzadeh’s performance in Aleppo, Soleimani recommended his promotion to Brigadier General and appointed him as Quds Force Chief of Staff in early 2019. Since his appointment, Fallahzadeh made widely reported visits to public events and has been featured in major television interviews. 

As the Deputy Commander of the IRGC Quds Force, Fallahzadeh assists Esmail Ghaani in leading the IRGC-QF which mainly focuses on extraterritorial operations. Under Soleimani’s leadership, the IRGC Quds Force strengthened and/or forged new alliances with militias and authoritarian regimes across the Middle East to maintain and expand Iranian influence in the Middle East at any price, resulting in millions of casualties across the region. The activities of the IRGC expanded to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, respectively, in support of militias, the Assad regime, Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels, among others.