Makram Atimi

Makram Atimi held the command of Iran's central Ballistic missile unit, one of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' most operationally significant formations given its role in threatening regional adversaries with direct-fire ballistic strikes. He was killed on 3 April 2026 in an IDF strike on Kermanshah, a strategically important city in western Iran that hosts major IRGC facilities. Several battalion commanders died alongside him.

Atimi's unit sits within the IRGC Aerospace Force, which controls Iran's medium and long-range Ballistic missile arsenal. That arsenal has been central to Tehran's deterrence posture throughout the 2025-26 conflict, used both in direct strikes and as a strategic threat multiplier. Targeting the commander of the central Ballistic missile unit represents one of the most significant decapitation strikes Israel has executed against Iran's missile command chain.

The killing accelerates a pattern of IDF strikes against IRGC command infrastructure deep inside Iranian territory, moving beyond frontier targets into the administrative heart of missile operations. Atimi's death creates an immediate succession problem for a unit that requires experienced command to coordinate complex multi-launcher operations, though Iran's layered command structure means operational capability is unlikely to collapse in the short term.