Brigadier General Ali Jahanshahi has been appointed commander of Iran’s Army Ground Forces, replacing Brigadier General Kioumars Heydari, who held the post for more than seven years, Iranian media reported on Saturday.
Jahanshahi previously served as deputy coordinator of the Army Ground Forces, commander of the 77th Thamen al-Aemeh Division, and deputy for assessment at the central Khatam al-Anbia Headquarters.
The reshuffle, while not officially highlighted by the military, continues a pattern of quiet personnel adjustments across Iran’s armed forces after the war in June.
In early October, the Revolutionary Guards appointed Brigadier General Hojatollah Ghoreishi as its coordinating deputy commander, replacing Mohammadreza Naghdi, who had held the role since 2020. Ghoreishi, a former deputy defense minister, was first referred to by his new title during a visit to Aligoudarz, signaling the formal transition.
“Officials in Iran said Farzad Khoshboresh’s health deteriorated in detention and that he died after being transferred to a hospital,” the department wrote Saturday on its Persian-language page on X.
“But the bruises and signs of torture on his body tell a different story, one that Iranians know all too well: the story of someone who dared to speak out and paid a heavy price,” it added.
Judiciary outlet confirms death
Mizan, the news agency of Iran’s judiciary, confirmed Khoshboresh’s death on Wednesday and said he had been taken to a hospital with signs of illness, released on bail the same day, and died two days later from illness.
His death, the State Department said, fits into what it called a “violent pattern” by the Islamic Republic to silence dissent and spread fear. “Even in the face of such repression, the brave people of Iran continue to demand justice, dignity, and freedom,” the department wrote.
The Hengaw rights group reported Tuesday that witnesses saw bruising on Khoshboresh’s body. Mizan did not mention any injuries.
Local sources said Khoshboresh was detained for a second time by the intelligence ministry on November 12. They said he suddenly suffered acute pain and vomiting in custody after consuming cake and water at the Behshahr detention center, lost consciousness, and was taken to hospital.
He was kept shackled to a bed and died 24 hours after receiving antibiotics, following a rejected request for transfer to another medical facility, according to the sources. Medical equipment, they added, was removed without informing his family and that his body was taken to a morgue.
Khoshborash was buried Thursday under heavy security in a village near Neka in northern Mazandaran province.
A recurring pattern
His death follows a long list of political detainees who have died in Iranian custody over the years.
Many detainees held on non-political charges have also died after beatings in police detention centers.
Iran’s constitution prohibits torture under Article 38, although the country has not joined the UN Convention Against Torture.
These scenes travel fast because they are rare: glimpses of a lifestyle that feels transgressive, novel and attractive. But they tell only one story: the story of a few thousand people, or tens of thousands at most.
A recent trip I took from Tehran to Arak—a central, industrial city neither wealthy nor poor—was a reminder of the other Iran, the one that almost never goes viral because nothing about it looks new.
I had travelled for a family funeral, the kind of gathering that pulls scattered relatives together every couple of years.
Silent suffering
What struck me first was how much people had aged—not in years, but in spirit.
Faces once energetic and upwardly mobile now carried a weary stillness. Conversations that used to revolve around plans and hopes now dwelt on stress, stagnation and the quiet grind of survival.
What surprised me even more was how depoliticized the atmosphere felt.
Arak is more traditional than Tehran, but that wasn’t the reason—almost no one in this family is a supporter of clerical rule, to put it mildly. The difference was energy. People simply had no energy left for arguments.
You’d hear the occasional question—“Will there be another war?”—or the familiar, bitter shorthand: “May they be damned for dragging us into this misery.” “They,” always meaning the ruling elite.
But beyond that, there was silence. Apathy so heavy you could almost taste it—bland, because the buds have been numbed by years of prolonged bitterness.
Unseen, commonplace
Driving around Arak, the contrast with the glossy clips from affluent Tehran felt almost jarring. Streets were subdued, shops half-lit, people moving with a kind of mechanical purpose.
Even those who would never describe themselves as poor are tightening in every direction: skipping leisure, postponing long-planned repairs, reducing meat consumption and silently navigating an inflation that deepens every few weeks.
And yet none of this appears online. Not because it is hidden, but because it is visually unremarkable.
Economic hardship has no aesthetics. There is no cinematic frame for the mother counting bills three times a week, or the father arguing with a bank over a loan he knows he can never repay.
There is no viral clip for a city quietly shrinking its ambitions.
Poles apart
This is the imbalance shaping Iran’s public imagination today: a tiny minority producing the country’s most visible images, and a vast majority living a reality that resists imagery. Social media magnifies the first and erases the second.
The result is two Irans: one seen, curated, exceptional; the other lived, familiar and increasingly exhausted.
What Arak revealed was simply scale.
If this is the condition of people once firmly middle class in a city that is not even among Iran’s poorest, then the unseen hardship elsewhere is almost certainly sharper.
The novelty of a few hundred affluent gatherings has captured the digital spotlight. The daily grind of millions, meanwhile, continues off-camera—too commonplace to trend, too ordinary to excite but defining the country far more than any brunch could.