Hossein Salami

Salami was born in 1960 in Golpayegan, Isfahan Province, Iran.[1][5] A 2023 American sanctions-list update recorded his birthplace as Golpayegan and listed several forms of his name, including Hosein Salimi and the aliases Hoseyn, Hossein, and Hussayn Salami.[5]

In 1978, Salami began studying mechanical engineering at the Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran.[1] His university education was interrupted when the Iran–Iraq War began in 1980 and he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.[1] He fought in Kurdistan during the war.[4]

Salami held wartime commands that included the IRGC’s 14th Imam Hussein Division and the Nuh operational naval base.[1][4] After the war ended in 1988, he completed his education and earned a master’s degree in defense management.[1][4]

Salami headed the IRGC Command and Staff University from 1992 to 1997 and then served in the IRGC operations directorate until 2005.[4] He subsequently commanded the IRGC Air Force and became deputy commander of the corps in 2009.[1][4]

By 2007, Salami was publicly identified in an American designation notice as commander of the IRGC Air Force.[6] The notice placed him among individuals designated under Executive Order 13382 on the basis of their relationship to the IRGC.[6] He remained deputy commander for approximately a decade, serving under Mohammad Ali Jafari before succeeding him in 2019.[1]

During his years as deputy commander, Salami repeatedly threatened Israel with destruction in the event of military action against Iran.[1][7] In September 2012, he described a possible Israeli attack as “a historic opportunity to wipe them from the world map.”[7] His rhetoric also addressed the possibility of conflict with the United States: in 2015, he said Iran was prepared for a “worst-case scenario” and declared, “We will welcome a war with the Americans.”[1]

On April 20, 2018, Salami threatened Israeli air bases, saying that Iran’s “hands are on the trigger and missiles are ready.”[3] On October 5, 2018, he said that Israel’s prime minister needed to “learn how to swim in the Mediterranean Sea.”[1] On January 31, 2019, he warned: “If a war starts … the Zionist regime is doomed.”[1] His threats thus included both declarations about Israel’s destruction and statements concerning specific military targets.[1][3]

Salami also spoke publicly about the regional reach of Iranian policy before taking the top IRGC position.[8] On February 2, 2019, he said that Iran had developed a regional strategy extending beyond its borders.[8] He described Iranian influence in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and Syria as resting on shared religious and political outlooks.[8]

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed Salami commander-in-chief of the IRGC on April 21, 2019, replacing Jafari, who had held the command since 2007.[1][9] Salami took the post after approximately ten years as deputy commander and was promoted to major general.[1] Iranian state television announced the leadership change without giving a reason for Jafari’s replacement.[9]

The appointment followed the United States’ designation of the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.[1] Responding to that designation in April 2019, Salami said, “We are proud to be called terrorists by somebody like [U.S. President Donald] Trump.”[1] The change of command placed a long-serving deputy, whose preceding appointments included operational and air-force command, at the head of the corps.[1]

Early in Salami’s command, Iran shot down an American unmanned surveillance aircraft near the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, 2019.[10] Salami called the downing “an open, clear and categorical message” that Iran’s defenders would respond decisively to foreign aggression.[10] United States Central Command maintained that the aircraft had been flying over international waters.[10]

Under Salami’s command, the IRGC strengthened its involvement in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.[11] His tenure also encompassed the large-scale use of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles in Iran’s direct attacks on Israel during 2024.[4][12]

Salami’s public position on Israel remained threatening during his command.[13] In 2022, he declared: “The Zionists have no safe haven in occupied Palestine and all parts of the land are within the reach of Palestinian resistance movements’ firepower.”[13] Following Operation Breaking Dawn earlier that month, he described the Palestinian response as opening “a new chapter” and said Israel “will pay another heavy price for the recent crime.”[13]

His public interventions also addressed domestic opposition to the Iranian government.[8] Salami supported the suppression of the protests that followed Iran’s 2009 election.[8] In remarks dated December 30, 2018, he described that unrest as an enemy plot and said it had been more dangerous than the Iran–Iraq War, declaring that “the riots were more dangerous than the ‘imposed war.’”[8]

Following Mahsa Amini’s death in custody in September 2022, Salami issued a direct warning to people participating in the ensuing protests.[14] On October 29, he declared: “Do not come to the streets! Today is the last day of the riots.”[14] He described the unrest as a plan hatched “in the White House and the Zionist regime.”[14] Human-rights groups reported deaths and arrests during the protests, while particular reports of security forces shooting students remained unverified in the contemporary reporting.[14]

In August 2023, Salami described the demonstrations following Amini’s death as “the strongest, most dangerous, and most serious” such protests in Iran.[15] He claimed that IRGC and Basij personnel had defeated them by thwarting the enemy’s plans.[15] The IRGC and Basij were central to suppressing those protests.[15] Reporting on the same period also described leaked documents indicating that President Ebrahim Raisi had pushed to provide the IRGC with more than $6 billion in support amid the unrest.[15]

Iran’s direct military confrontation with Israel became a major part of Salami’s final period in command.[4][12] On April 1, 2024, a strike in Damascus attributed to Israel killed IRGC Quds Force commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi and six aides.[12] Iran responded on April 13 with a large attack using drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles.[4][12] Salami directed the operation, which involved more than 300 weapons launched toward Israel.[4][12] It was the first Iranian attack on Israel carried out directly from Iranian territory.[16]

A breakdown of the April attack placed the force at approximately 185 drones, 110 ballistic missiles, and 36 cruise missiles.[4] A separate analysis gave a total of 331 missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles launched toward Israel.[12] Nevatim Air Force Base was the main target, and Salami said it was the base from which the aircraft involved in the Damascus strike had departed.[12] He also identified Ramon Air Force Base and an Intelligence Corps base on Mount Hermon as targets.[12]

Most of the weapons launched in April were intercepted, and only a few missiles struck Nevatim.[12] After the attack, Salami announced what he called “a new equation with Israel,” under which Israeli attacks on Iranian interests would be answered directly from Iranian territory.[16] He also described the April attack as a new regional “paradigm.”[4]

Salami directed a further Iranian attack on Israel in October 2024, involving the launch of approximately 180 ballistic missiles.[4] His command therefore encompassed both the April drone-and-missile assault and the later ballistic-missile attack during the 2023–24 Israel–Hamas war.[4]

Salami was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Iran on the morning of June 13, 2025.[2][17] The IRGC confirmed his death, while Israeli reporting listed him among the senior Iranian commanders killed in the opening attack.[2][17] The strike was part of Operation Rising Lion, whose initial targets included Iranian military leaders, nuclear scientists, and military and nuclear infrastructure.[2]

Operation Rising Lion began overnight on June 12–13, with waves of Israeli airstrikes starting at approximately 2:59 a.m. Israeli time.[2] Salami was listed among the confirmed dead alongside other senior military figures and six nuclear scientists.[2] His death ended a tenure at the head of the IRGC that had begun in April 2019 and continued through Iran’s direct attacks on Israel in 2024.[1][2]

Khamenei appointed General Mohammad Pakpour as the new IRGC commander later on June 13, 2025, the day Salami was killed.[18] The succession followed the loss of an officer who had commanded the corps since 2019 and had previously spent approximately a decade as its deputy commander.[1][18] Salami’s career had encompassed wartime field and naval assignments, command-and-staff education, general-staff operations, air-force command, and leadership of the organization as a whole.[1][4]

The IRGC confirmed Salami’s death and commemorated him as one of the prominent commanders of the Islamic Revolution.[17] Its statement said that he had been at the forefront of defending the revolution’s principles and the nation, while also threatening that Israel would pay a heavy price.[17]

Salami’s period in command included strengthened IRGC involvement in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.[11] It also included the April and October 2024 attacks on Israel, which he directed.[4] In the April operation, Iranian forces launched hundreds of drones and missiles directly from Iranian territory, although most were intercepted.[16][12] His declaration of a “new equation” publicly set out his view of how Iran should answer future Israeli actions.[16]

His death occurred at the beginning of the June 2025 war rather than at its conclusion.[2] The conflict continued for twelve days and ended with a ceasefire.[2] The opening Israeli attack killed Salami together with other senior Iranian military leaders, making the loss of the IRGC commander part of a wider disruption of Iran’s senior military leadership.[2]

Salami was subject to international sanctions concerning Iran’s military programs and the suppression of domestic protests.[4] The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on him in 2006 in connection with Iran’s nuclear program.[4] American sanctions followed in 2007, with the designation notice identifying him as IRGC Air Force commander and citing his relationship to the IRGC under Executive Order 13382.[6] The European Union sanctioned him in April 2021, citing his influence on the violent suppression of protests roughly two years earlier.[4]

His role in responding to the 2022 protests also generated legal allegations.[4] Salami was among the Iranian officials and institutions named in a lawsuit filed in a French court concerning allegations of IRGC violence against civilians during the demonstrations following Amini’s death.[4] These allegations were distinct from his own public account, in which he portrayed the unrest as an externally organized threat and credited the IRGC and Basij with defeating it.[14][15]

His repeated threats against Israel formed another prominent part of his public record.[1][7] Alongside warnings about missiles and Israel’s destruction, an October 2 speech included the statement that Israel would be “wiped off the world’s political geography”; the available passage preserving that quotation does not specify the speech’s year.[19] His public statements likewise framed domestic protest as an enemy conspiracy, including his October 2022 assertion that the unrest had been planned in the White House and by Israel.[14] Those assertions represented Salami’s political claims about the protesters rather than an independently established account of the demonstrations’ origins.[14]