Who was Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief killed in Israeli strikes?

Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed in Israel’s strikes early on Friday, essentially the most senior Iranian chief to die within the assaults.

Salami, who was 65, was recognized for taking a hardline stance in opposition to Iran’s rivals, together with Israel and the US. Simply final month, he had warned that Tehran would “open the gates of hell” if attacked by both nation.

Israel launched widescale strikes in opposition to Iran, saying it focused nuclear amenities, ballistic missile factories and navy commanders, regardless of US President Donald Trump warning its ally in opposition to scuppering talks on a possible nuclear deal.

Tehran has warned that Israel and the US – which denies being concerned – can pay a “heavy worth” for the assaults, elevating considerations that this may lead an already fragile area into full-scale battle.

Israel’s strikes additionally killed Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Workers of the nation’s armed forces, Gholamali Rashid, the deputy commander of the Iranian armed forces, and a number of other nuclear scientists.

Only a day earlier than the strikes, Salami had mentioned that Iran was “totally prepared for any situations, conditions, and circumstances”.

“The enemy thinks it could combat Iran the identical manner it fights defenceless Palestinians who’re below an Israeli siege,” he mentioned. “We’re war-tested and skilled.”

Salami first joined the Revolutionary Guards – a robust department of the Iranian armed forces – in 1980 through the Iran-Iraq battle and have become deputy commander in 2009, then commander a decade later.

For the reason that 2000s, he has been sanctioned by the UN Safety Council and the US for his involvement in Iran’s nuclear and navy programmes.

Salami had boasted of Iran’s navy capabilities, at one level declaring that the nation was “on the verge of changing into a world energy”.

He had welcomed the prospect of navy battle with Israel and the US. Following an Israeli strike in opposition to Iranian targets in Syria in 2019, Salami vowed to “wipe the Zionist regime” off the political map.

Following one other strike in April final 12 months on the Iranian embassy in Syria, which killed seven members of the Revolutionary Guards together with two generals, Salami issued an identical warning: “Our courageous males will punish the Zionist regime.”

Iran and Israel had been allies till a 1979 revolution in Iran, which introduced in a regime that has used opposing Israel as a key a part of its ideology.

The Iranian regime immediately doesn’t recognise Israel’s proper to exist. The nation’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has referred to as Israel a “cancerous tumour” that “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed”.

Israel says Tehran’s rhetoric makes Iran an existential risk. Israel and its allies have additionally criticised Iran’s build-up of proxy forces within the area, together with the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah which can be sworn to Israel’s destruction.

Salami and different senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards routinely advise Iran’s supreme chief.

Iran’s clerical chief arrange the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps 40 years in the past to defend the nation’s Islamic system and to offer a counterweight to the common armed forces, which they didn’t belief.

With greater than 190,000 lively personnel and boasting of its personal floor, navy and air forces, the Revolutionary Guards is among the nation’s strongest – and most feared – navy and political teams.

Whereas Iran’s military guards the nation’s territory, the Revolutionary Guards was set as much as defend the regime itself.

Because the group stories on to the supreme chief, its energy shouldn’t be simply checked by different establishments.

It oversees Iran’s strategic weapons and controls the paramilitary Basij Resistance Power, which has usually been used to suppress home dissent.

The Revolutionary Guards can be thought to manage round a 3rd of Iran’s financial system by way of a collection of subsidiaries and trusts. It additionally holds billions of {dollars} in building and engineering contracts.

Elsewhere within the Center East, the group exerts affect by offering cash, weapons, know-how, coaching and recommendation to allied governments.

A number of the Revolutionary Guards’ most elite members function its shadowy abroad operations arm, the Quds Power, which has ties with armed teams within the area, together with Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and Yemen.

Former Revolutionary Guards officers proceed to occupy influential positions in authorities, parliament and different political our bodies. They embody former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani.

Further reporting by Koh Ewe and Raffi Berg