The bombing that the Israeli government called the “preventive attack,” launched against Iran, left at least 80 dead on Thursday. Among the victims are some of the main Iranian military chiefs, such as General Mohammad Bagheri, then head of the Iran’s Armed Forces, and General Hossein Salami, commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guard. The military is commanded by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
It was Khamenei who announced the deaths of the military. To try to contain the damage to the chain of command after the huge thud, the government immediately indicated substitutes: the staff is commanded by General Abdolrahim Mousavi, who was a commander of the army, while the revolutionary guard will be headed by Mohammad Pakpour, who led the land forces of the same armed arm.
Political organization
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There Khamenei is the boss in Iran. He is the head of state and occupies the lifetime position of the supreme leader, post of greater political and religious authority in the country. Ayatollah is responsible for naming the Armed Forces and Revolutionary Guard leaders, defining who holds the most important positions of the judiciary and commanding the country’s internal and external policy actions.
At the post since 1989, Khamenei chooses even Iranian state media leaders, as well as controlling intelligence operations and ratifying the results of presidential elections. The supreme leader is chosen by an assembly of Islamic law specialists and elected by direct vote every eight years, and the list of candidates must be approved by the so -called Guardian Council, made up of six jurists and six clerics – also elected by Khamenei nominations.
Below is the Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, who, due to the limitations imposed by the supreme leader’s performance, has a greater focus on the economy. He is elected by direct vote, as well as the 290 parliamentarians, elected every four years. The laws elaborated by politicians, however, need to pass precisely by the Guardian Council.
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Revolutionary guard
In 1979, when the Islamic Republic was established, Iran cut all its official relations with Israel, failing to recognize it, and revolutionary guard was created precisely to protect the regime. In 1982, when Israel broke into Lebanon, Guarda helped create Hezbollah, a Shiite movement that was implemented in South Lebanese and launched an armed struggle against the Jewish state.
The organization is the most powerful and feared arm of the country’s armed forces. Iran has never released official numbers, but an estimate from the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that the Guard is today formed by about 125,000 men, divided into distinct areas. The revolutionary guard has their own special troops for the army, navy and aeronautics.
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In 2019, Donald Trump declared the revolutionary guard as a “foreign terrorist organization” in the United States.
Other casualties
According to police heard by the New York Times, the attacks also victimized Esmail Qaani, head of the QDS Force – Revolutionary Guard elite unit responsible for articulating Islamic revolutionary movements in other countries, including Hamas himself in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Iemen.
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Khamenei added that other high -ranking military commanders, as well as scientists linked to the country’s nuclear program – state press cited six scientists – were killed in attacks that included residential targets. In addition to the military commanders, he was also killed there Shamkhani, a former senior commander of the Navy, one of Iran’s most influential politicians and confidant near Khamenei.
– Some of the commanders and scientists were killed, but their substitutes will immediately assume their functions. And the Zionist regime, with this crime, created a painful and bitter destination for himself, and will certainly receive it, ”he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he attacked “the heart of the Iranian nuclear program”, considered an existential threat to the country. Tehran, in turn, considered the offensive an act of war.
