Tehran Revolutionary Guard chief replaced

Comannder Rajabzadeh (left) shaking hands with Commander Fazli

Commander Ali Fazli, head of Seyed-ol-Shoahda Revolutionary Guards has been replaced as Tehran security heads are being shuffled around. This week, Tehran police chief, Azizollah Rajabzadeh also retired only after six months at his post.

Governor of Tehran, Morteza Tamaddon lauded Commander Fazli’s actions in the post-election events and his confrontation with what he referred to as “the seditious movement and the riots.”

Police and Revolutionary Guards have collaborated in the past eight months, confronting the protests to the disputed victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June presidential elections. Commander Ali Fazli and Commander Rajabzadeh as the heads of Revolutionary Guards, Basij and the police brought the security forces together to put down the protests and crackdown on protesters.

Despite Commander Rajabzadeh’s claims that they made every effort to make sure no harm came to people, official reports put the number of dead in these confrontations at 40 which reformist media claim is more like half the actual number of casualties.

The two commanders have been replaced in less than a week while Saeed Mortazavi, who was Tehran’s prosecutor at the height of the protests and has been recently charged with the violent treatment of post-election detainees in the infamous Kahrizak jail, was also removed very early on from his post by Head of the Judiciary, Sadegh Larijani.