Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was among the senior Iranian officials killed in Israel’s sweeping air strikes that began on Thursday.

A longtime confidant of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Salami rose up the ranks in Iran, becoming head of the IRGC in 2019, when he replaced Mohammad Ali Jafari.

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Like many of his contemporaries, Salami’s formative years came during the Iran-Iraq war that pitted the neighbours against each other and killed hundreds of thousands of people between 1980 and 1988.

Salami began his IRGC career during the war and is reported to have fought in several battles and held leadership positions.

His wartime experience gave him a badge of legitimacy that was one of the reasons he was then able to rise through the IRGC ranks. By 2005, Salami had been appointed as commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, where he was responsible for ballistic missile and drone development, before being appointed deputy commander-in-chief of the IRGC in 2009.

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Sanctions

As is the case for many in the upper echelons of the Iranian military apparatus, Salami was subject to sanctions in 2007 by the United States for his role in missile development. The United Nations Security Council also sanctioned him for the same reason the year before.

Salami was also subject to Canadian sanctions for his role in subduing antigovernment protests in 2022, while the European Union sanctioned him for his involvement in supplying drones to Russia for military operations in Ukraine.

During his leadership of the IRGC, Iran strengthened the so-called “Axis of Resistance”, a group of allied countries and groups across the Middle East who were funded or acted in coordination with the IRGC, including Syria under the Bashar al-Assad regime, the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the Palestinian group Hamas, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and allied Shia groups in Iraq.

“We shall fight them [our enemies] on the global level, not just in one spot,” Salami was quoted as saying. “Our war is not a local war. We have plans to defeat the world 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 in a statement reported by IRNA, the Iranian news agency, on Friday.

Salami died in an air strike, according to Iranian media. The attacks killed many of the top military figures in Iran and notable nuclear scientists. Iran has responded by attacking Israel with ballistic missiles – the very weapon Salami had such an important role in developing for the country.

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

“On a human level you will have gaps of knowledge when you assassinate people who decide military strategy, are fluent in multiple languages, have personal networks and charisma within the command chain,” Reza H Akbari, Middle East and North Africa programme manager at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, told Al Jazeera.

“But it’s difficult to destroy an existing structure that goes with existing nuclear knowledge and the command chain within the military and security apparatus of the country.”