A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Force has been killed after the ultralight gyroplane he was aboard crashed during a counterterrorism exercise in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province close to the border with Pakistan.

According to The Iran Project, the Quds Base of the IRGC Ground Force announced in a statement that Second Brigadier General Hamid Mazandarani, Commander of the Naynava Brigade of the elite force in the northern Golestan province, lost his life on Monday as the compact rotor-blade aircraft went down in the course of the “Martyrs of Security” drills at Sirkan area of Saravan County.