Who was Hossein Salami, Iran’s IRGC head killed by Israel?

Hossein Salami, who was appointed to pb the IRGC successful 2019, among the astir elder figures killed by Israel.

Hossein Salami, the commandant of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was among the senior Iranian officials killed successful Israel’s sweeping aerial strikes that began connected Thursday.

A longtime confidant of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Salami roseate up the ranks successful Iran, becoming caput of the IRGC successful 2019, erstwhile helium replaced Mohammad Ali Jafari.

Like galore of his contemporaries, Salami’s formative years came during the Iran-Iraq warfare that pitted the neighbours against each different and killed hundreds of thousands of radical betwixt 1980 and 1988.

Salami began his IRGC vocation during the warfare and is reported to person fought successful respective battles and held enactment positions.

His wartime acquisition gave him a badge of legitimacy that was 1 of the reasons helium was past capable to emergence done the IRGC ranks. By 2005, Salami had been appointed arsenic commandant of the IRGC Aerospace Force, wherever helium was liable for ballistic rocket and drone development, earlier being appointed lawman commander-in-chief of the IRGC successful 2009.

Sanctions

As is the lawsuit for galore successful the precocious echelons of the Iranian subject apparatus, Salami was taxable to sanctions successful 2007 by the United States for his relation successful rocket development. The United Nations Security Council besides sanctioned him for the aforesaid crushed the twelvemonth before.

Salami was besides taxable to Canadian sanctions for his relation successful subduing antigovernment protests successful 2022, portion the European Union sanctioned him for his engagement successful supplying drones to Russia for subject operations successful Ukraine.

During his enactment of the IRGC, Iran strengthened the alleged “Axis of Resistance”, a radical of allied countries and groups crossed the Middle East who were funded oregon acted successful coordination with the IRGC, including Syria nether the Bashar al-Assad regime, the Lebanese radical Hezbollah, the Palestinian radical Hamas, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and allied Shia groups successful Iraq.

“We shall combat them [our enemies] connected the planetary level, not conscionable successful 1 spot,” Salami was quoted arsenic saying. “Our warfare is not a section war. We person plans to decision the satellite powers.”

Death

“With hearts filled with sorrow and grief, we mourn the unjust martyrdom of the loyal and steadfast commander, Major-General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the IRGC said successful a connection reported by IRNA, the Iranian quality agency, connected Friday.

Salami died successful an aerial strike, according to Iranian media. The attacks killed galore of the apical subject figures successful Iran and notable atomic scientists. Iran has responded by attacking Israel with ballistic missiles – the precise limb Salami had specified an important relation successful processing for the country.

After Salami’s assassination, Ahmad Vahidi was announced arsenic his successor.

“On a quality level you volition person gaps of cognition erstwhile you assassinate radical who determine subject strategy, are fluent successful aggregate languages, person idiosyncratic networks and charisma wrong the bid chain,” Reza H Akbari, Middle East and North Africa programme manager astatine the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, told Al Jazeera.

“But it’s hard to destruct an existing operation that goes with existing atomic cognition and the bid concatenation wrong the subject and information apparatus of the country.”