Esmail Ghaani appointed as head of Iran’s Quds Force after Soleimani killing
TEHRAN,— Iran’s supreme leader appointed the deputy commander of the Quds Force, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, as the replacement for Qassem Soleimani, the former head of the elite force who was killed in a U.S. air strike on Friday, state media reported.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement that program of the Quds Force, the military unit responsible for projecting Iran’s influence via proxies across the Middle East, “will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor.”
Ghaani became deputy commander of the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in 1997 when Soleimani became the Force’s chief commander.
Ghaani was quoted by Iranian media as saying in 2017 that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “threats against Iran will damage America … We have buried many … like Trump and know how to fight against America.”
The United States killed Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force and spearhead of Iran’s spreading military influence in the Middle East, on Friday in an air strike at Baghdad airport, the Pentagon and Iran said.
Top Iraqi Shiite militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an adviser to Soleimani, was also killed in the attack, a militia spokesman said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed in a statement that Soleimani was killed. “Honored supreme commander of Islam, Haj Qassem Soleimani, was martyred this morning after a life of struggle in an attack by American helicopters,” the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement read on state TV.
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