text: During his service at the Imperial Russian-trained Iranian Cossack Brigade, one of his military superiors was Reza Khan, who later became the Iranian monarch. Zahedi was among the officers dispatched to Gilan to put an end to the Jangal movement of Mirza Kuchak Khan. At the age of 23, as a company commander, Zahedi led troops into battle against rebel tribesmen in the northern provinces. Two years later Reza Shah promoted him to the rank of brigadier general. He was involved in the overthrow of Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee's government in 1920 with the help of Meguertitch Khan Davidkhanian.
  During Reza Shah's reign, General Zahedi was named military governor of Khuzestan province in 1926, his first important government position, and in 1932 chief of national police, one of the nation's top internal posts. In 1941 he was appointed commanding general of the Isfahan division.
  Arrest and internment
  Following the forced abdication of Reza Shah in 1941, the British came to believe that Zahedi was planning a general uprising in cooperation with German forces, and as one of the worst grain-hoarders, was responsible for widespread popular discontent. He was arrested in his own office by Fitzroy Maclean, who details the operation, codenamed PONGO,  in his 1949 memoir Eastern Approaches. On searching Zahedi's bedroom Maclean found "a collection of automatic weapons of German manufacture, a good deal of silk underwear, some opium, an illustrated register of the prostitutes of Isfahan," and correspondence from a local German agent. Zahedi was flown out of the country and interned in Palestine.