Iranian state television confirmed on Friday morning that the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was killed in Israel’s strikes.
Gen. Hossein Salami was the chief of one of the country’s most powerful centers, and his death was a tough blow to Iran’s embattled leadership, which has had a series of setbacks in the past 20 months of Middle Eastern war and unrest.
Salami rose to power six years ago and had a history of threatening the US and Israel. Here’s a closer look:
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was created after its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since its establishment, it has evolved from a paramilitary, domestic security force into a transnational force that has come to the aid of Tehran’s allies in the Middle East, from Syria and Lebanon to Iraq.
It operates in parallel to the country’s existing armed forces. It controls Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles, which it has used to attack Israel twice during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Salami, 65, was appointed as head of the guard in 2019 by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The appointment followed US President Donald Trump’s decision during his first term to withdraw the US from the international nuclear deal with Iran and restore crippling sanctions. It also followed Trump’s designation of the Guard as a terrorist organization.
Salami joined the guard at the outbreak of the bloody 1980s Iran-Iraq war. He later rose to head its air forces and was serving as a deputy commander in the IRGC when he was appointed.
Like other Guard leaders, Salami routinely delivered speeches with harsh rhetoric towards Israel. In a 2016 address, he said there was “fertile ground” for the “annihilation, the wiping out, and the collapse of the Zionist regime.” He also threatened the United States.
After the US killed the powerful head of the Guard’s Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike outside Baghdad’s airport in 2020, Salami threatened to retaliate against American and Israeli commanders. The Quds, or Jerusalem Force, is an elite wing of the Guard that oversees foreign operations.
Five days later, Iran launched ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq housing American troops, causing injuries but no fatalities among soldiers there.
After Soleimani was killed, Salami said that both the US and Israel should know that “if they threaten our commanders, none of their commanders will find a safe place” to live.
Israel and Iran have run a shadow war for years, but last year the two attacked each other directly.
When an Israeli strike killed seven guard members, including two Iranian generals, at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria, Salami vowed to retaliate.
Weeks later, Salami ordered an operation that launched more than 300 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles in an unprecedented revenge mission that pushed the Middle East closer to a regionwide war.
Israel said that 99 percent were intercepted, with several ballistic missiles reaching Israeli territory, causing minor damage to an air base.
In October, Israel pounded Iran with a series of airstrikes in response to missile attacks into Israel from Iran earlier in the month.
Israel’s military said it targeted “missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at Israel over the last year.” Israel also weakened the country’s air defenses, which helped clear the way for Friday’s attacks.