🔶 The political life of Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf in seven frames Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, born on the first of Mehr in 1340 in Torshebeh, Mashhad, is one of the long-standing members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Government media have written about him that he “entered political and social activity” at the age of 16, and before the 1979 Revolution, he would sit in the mosque in Mashhad at the feet of people such as Ali Khamenei, Ali Tehrani, and Abdolkarim Hasheminejad. In one of his interviews, Hamshahri Ali Khamenei recalled sitting at his pulpit in Mashhad during his adolescence as the “hangout” of his teenage years; a hangout that, of course, remained in operation decades later as well. With the start of the Iran–Iraq war, Qalibaf, at the age of 18, went to the front lines and joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to memoirs and accounts of some officers from the war era, Qalibaf’s responsibilities were mostly related to operations intelligence, but he soon moved into important posts, including becoming the commander of the 5th Nasr Division of Khorasan and the 25th Karbala Division.