Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the IRGC Ground Forces, was killed in the opening strikes of 28 February, according to Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights monitoring organisation. Neither the Pentagon nor the IRGC has confirmed his death. Pakpour had commanded the IRGC's largest branch since approximately 2009, overseeing ground operations in Syria — where IRGC forces defended the Assad government's territorial control — and in Iraq, where IRGC-affiliated militia partners operate under varying degrees of Iranian direction. In 2024, he publicly threatened to "burn down" Tel Aviv.
The IRGC Ground Forces are distinct from Iran's regular army, the Artesh. They are the ideologically vetted force responsible for border defence, internal security, and ground expeditionary operations — and they exercise operational control over the Basij paramilitary units that suppressed the January 2026 protests with documented lethal force, including snipers firing into crowds. If Pakpour was killed on day one, the IRGC has been fighting without its ground commander from the war's first hours, while simultaneously facing the question of who maintains internal order if domestic unrest resurfaces under sustained bombardment across 24 provinces.
The institutional damage is cumulative. Ali Khamenei, who functioned as commander-in-chief, is dead. The Assembly of Experts was struck in Qom while selecting a successor, with multiple members killed or wounded. Mojtaba Khamenei's formal investiture has been delayed. The IRGC's command architecture — Supreme Leader, political-clerical oversight, operational commanders — has lost figures at every tier within six days. The organisation has continued launching missile salvos, including waves 16 and 17 of Operation True Promise 4, and executed a coordinated simultaneous strike with Hezbollah on Israeli cities. Whether those operations reflect coherent central direction or decentralised initiative from branch commanders operating on standing orders is unknown — and the distinction matters. Autonomous units can fight. They cannot negotiate a stop.
