Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) confirmed in the early hours of Friday morning local time that Israeli airstrikes on targets in the country eliminated Major General Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Other arms of Iran’s state news apparatus confirmed several other high-profile regime members, including two nuclear scientists, were killed in the strikes. While unverified reports suggested that Salami may be far from the only high-ranking Iranian regime official to have been targeted successfully in the operation, he is the only one whose death the Iranian government has confirmed at press time.
Salami has sustained a place as one of the most prominent and belligerent senior leaders in the Iranian Islamist regime, regularly threatening attacks on America and Israel. In what was perhaps his final public appearance on Thursday, Salami declared that his forces were “war-tested and experienced,” prepared for war against its enemies.
The IRGC is both a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and a formal wing of the Iranian Armed Forces. Among its chief operations is to sustain relations between the Iranian terror state and its jihadist proxies, such as the Houthis in Yemen and Lebanese Hezbollah, and with fellow rogue states such as Venezuela and Cuba.
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