Former Iran army chief, who accused West of using lizard spies, dies of COVID-19

TEHRAN, Iran — Former Iranian armed forces chief Hassan Firouzabadi, who as soon as accused Western nations of spying on the nation utilizing lizards, has died of coronavirus aged 70, native media reported on Friday.

Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami praised Firouzabadi’s “steady efforts” to defend “the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” in a press release printed on the Guards’ Sepahnews web site.

A skilled physician, Firouzabadi joined the Basij Islamic volunteer militia in the course of the Iran-Iraq struggle of 1980-88.

Serving in administrative roles, he swiftly rose up its ranks earlier than being named head of the armed forces in September 1989 by Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remaining within the put up till 2016.

Iran’s armed forces chief has authority over each the common military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

That made Firouzabadi one of many essential architects of Iranian navy help for Baghdad and Damascus of their battles in opposition to the Islamic State group and different Sunni jihadist actions.

Illustrative: An Oriental Backyard Lizard sits on a tree in Gauhati, India, April 16, 2019. (AP Picture/Anupam Nath)

Changed by Mohammad Hossein Bagheri on the head of the armed forces, Firouzabadi then served as Khamenei’s navy adviser till his loss of life.

The Fars information company reported that he died after contracting COVID-19.

In 2018, throughout a world face-off over the loss of life in jail of Iranian-Canadian environmentalist Kavous Seyed Emami, Firouzabadi accused Western international locations of utilizing lizards and chameleons as “nuclear spies” to “discover uranium mines and atomic exercise” in Iran.

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