TEHRAN- Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei received members of the family of the martyred Major General Mohammad Reza Zahedi on Sunday.

Mehdi Fazaeli, deputy chief of the Office for the Preservation and Publication of Works of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, announced on his X account that the family of Major General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was martyred in the Zionist regime attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria, attended a meeting with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

The meeting took place 40 days after the martyrdom of Major General Zahedi in Damascus, Syria.

"The martyrdom of Zahedi caused valuable and important consequences," Ayatollah Khamenei said in this meeting, according to Fazaeli.

“The martyr Zahedi was martyred at the hands of the most wretched of creation,” the Leader told Zahedi's family.

Family of martyr Zahedi honored with major general rank

The family of martyr Zahedi was honored with the rank of Major General on Sunday. 

Martyr Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a distinguished commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), and a prominent figure in the IRGC leadership during the Iran-Iraq War in the late 1980s, received this posthumous recognition.

Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his deputy, Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, were killed in the Israeli attack on the Consular Section of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus on April 1.

In a statement, the IRGC’s Public Relations Directorate-General strongly condemned the attack that, it said, had also resulted in the martyrdom of five officers accompanying the commanders.

The statement identified the officers in question as Hossein Amanollahi, Seyyed Mehdi Jalalati, Mohsen Sedaqat, Ali Aqababayi, and Ali Salehi Rouzbahani.

The attack, it pointed out, had come “on the back of the wolfish Zionist regime’s irreparable defeats in the face of the Palestinian resistance and the steadfastness of the people of Gaza, as well as [its] ignominy in the face of the steely resolve of the fighters of the regional resistance front.”

Syria's official news agency, SANA, said the strikes were carried out by “the Israeli enemy” and targeted the Mezzeh neighborhood in Damascus.

Born in 1960, Zahedi joined the IRGC in 1980 and was a commander of the elite force during the Iraqi-imposed war in the 1980s.

He was the commander of the IRGC Air Force from 2005 to 2006. Later he served as the IRGC Ground Force Commander from 2006 to 2008.

Zahedi served as a commander of the IRGC Quds Force from 2008 to 2016.