Sincere repentance, True Promise, and Hill 143

Less than forty-eight hours remained until zero hour when Intelligence Protection passed the information to the commander. One of the Basij volunteers had a history of association with and sympathy for opposition groups. Now, with only two days left before the operation, the battalion commander had been informed that the individual was not permitted to participate. He was to be detained until authorities arrived to take him away.

Without revealing the reason, the commander informed the volunteer that he would not be allowed to join the operation. The young Basiji immediately fell at the commander’s feet, pleading through tears for an explanation and for permission to participate. The battalion commander of those years, who would later become the deputy head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, found himself unsure of what to do.

They sought guidance through the Quran.

The verse that appeared was the verse of tawbat al-nasuh: sincere repentance.

The commander granted him permission to join the operation. The first martyr of the battalion in that operation turned out to be that very same Basiji.

Years after the war had ended, when he was asked during a gathering to share a memory from the front, the commander recalled the story of the Basiji of sincere repentance and recounted the episode. In truth, he himself was not unfamiliar with such people. In 1981, when he and his companions set their course toward the fronts of Abadan and Khorramshahr, neither the Army nor the IRGC initially accepted them. They eventually joined the forces of Fada'iyan-e Islam and the volunteers gathered around Sayyid Mojtaba Hashemi. Sayyid Mojtaba had assembled every type of person around him, from those devoted to nightly prayers to those who did not pray at all.

The commander was martyred twice.

The second time came during the 12-Day War, when a building near Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Musalla was bombed. The first time, however, was in the late spring of 1988. It was during the bombardment in which he lost one leg, while the other was so badly wounded that amputation was nearly unavoidable. Believing him dead, rescuers classified him among the martyrs and transported him alongside other bodies toward the morgue.

Amid the chaos, however, someone noticed signs of life and revived him.

Hassan Mohaqeq returned to the world.

He returned to serve as a soldier for another thirty-seven years. This time, however, he carried a body without a right leg, while his left leg had become shortened and largely unusable. It was a leg that was perpetually wounded and constantly infected. The process of draining those infections was so painful that even those around him could scarcely bear to watch.

Thirty-three years after the martyrdom of his brother Mohammad Saeed, his remains were finally recovered in 2016.

When Mohammad Saeed was martyred in 1983, the commander had searched every inch of northern Fakkah in hopes of finding the martyr of Hill 143. Every effort ended in frustration. It was as if Mohammad Saeed was not yet willing to leave Fakkah behind.

In the end, the commander submitted to the will of God and to the destiny of his brother.

Their father passed away two years after Mohammad Saeed’s martyrdom. When the remains were finally brought to the Tehran Martyrs’ Reception Center in 2016, Hassan Mohaqeq told a reporter that before his death, their father had seen the scene of Mohammad Saeed’s martyrdom in a dream. The scene his father described was identical to the account later given by one of Mohammad Saeed’s comrades who had witnessed the moment of his martyrdom.

Hassan Mohaqeq was martyred on June 15, 2025, the third day of the 12-Day War. At the time, he was serving as Deputy Head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization. After more than four decades of service, the veteran soldier attained martyrdom.

The anonymous commander belonged to that category of individuals described by Imam Ali (pbuh) in the Nahj al-Balagha: unknown on earth, yet renowned in the heavens.

Many people may never have known his name or recognized his face. Yet the results of his efforts and actions are undoubtedly familiar to them.

It was he who chose the name for the operations launched against the Zionist regime beginning in April 2024, operations that became known as True Promise. The name itself, much like the story of the Basiji mentioned at the beginning of this account, was inspired by a consultation of the Holy Quran.