A new Iranian general has stepped out of the shadows to lead the country's expeditionary Quds Force, becoming responsible for Tehran's proxies across the Mideast as the Islamic republic threatens the US with "harsh revenge" for killing its previous head, Qassem Soleimani.
The Quds Force is part of the 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guards, a paramilitary organization that answers only to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guard oversees Iran's ballistic missile program, has its naval forces shadow the US Navy in the Persian Gulf, and includes an all-volunteer Basij force.
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Like his predecessor, Esmail Ghaani faced the carnage of Iran's eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s and later joined the newly founded Quds, or Jerusalem, Force.
While much still remains unknown about Ghaani, 62, Western sanctions suggest he's long been in a position of power in the organization. And likely one of his first duties will be to oversee whatever revenge Iran intends to seek for the US airstrike early Friday that killed his longtime friend Soleimani.
"We are children of war," Ghaani once said of his relationship with Soleimani, according to Iran's state-run IRNA news agency. "We are comrades on the battlefield and we have become friends in battle."
The IRGC has seen its influence grow ever-stronger both militarily and politically in recent decades. Iran's conventional military was decimated by the execution of its old officer class during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and later by sanctions.
A key driver of that influence comes from the Quds Force, which directs the activities of Tehran's proxies worldwide, which include Iraqi militiamen, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Yemen's Houthi rebels.
In announcing Ghaani as Soleimani's replacement, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called him "one of the most prominent commanders" in service to Iran.
The Quds Force "will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor," Khamenei said.
Soleimani had long been the face of the Quds Force, but while Soleimani's exploits in Iraq and Syria launched a thousand analyses, Ghaani has remained in the shadows. He has only occasionally come up in the Western or even Iranian media. But his personal story broadly mirrors that of Soleimani.
Born Aug. 8, 1957 in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, Ghaani grew up during the last decade of monarchy. He joined the IRGC a year after the 1979 Revolution. Like Soleimani, he first deployed to put down the Kurdish uprising in Iran that followed the shah's downfall.
Iraq then invaded Iran, launching an eight-year war that would see a million people killed. Many of the dead were lightly armed members of the IRGC, some of whom were young boys killed in human-wave assaults on Iraqi positions.
He survived the war to join the Quds Force shortly after its creation. He worked with Soleimani, as well as led counterintelligence efforts at the IRGC. Western analysts believe while Soleimani focused on nations to Iran's west, Ghaani's remit was those to the east like Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, Iranian state media has not elaborated on his time in the Guard.
In 2012, the US Treasury sanctioned Ghaani, describing him as having authority over "financial disbursements" to proxies affiliated to the Quds Force. The sanctions particularly tied Ghaani to an intercepted shipment of weapons seized at a port in 2010 in Nigeria's most-populous city, Lagos.
Also in 2012, Ghaani drew criticism from the US State Department after reportedly saying that "if the Islamic republic was not present in Syria, the massacre of people would have happened on a much larger scale." That comment came just after gunmen backing Syrian President Bashar Assad killed over 100 people in Houla in the country's Homs province.
"We had the deputy head of the Quds Force saying publicly that they were proud of the role that they had played in training and assisting the Syrian forces – and look what this has wrought," then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nunland said at the time.
In January 2015, Ghaani indirectly said that Iran sends missiles and weapons to Palestinians to fight Israel.
"The US and Israel are too small to consider themselves in line with Iran's military power," Ghaani said at the time. "This power has now appeared alongside the oppressed people of Palestine and Gaza in the form of missiles and weapons."
Now, Ghaani is firmly in control of the Quds Force. While Iran's leaders say they have a plan to avenge Soleimani's death, no plan has been announced as the country prepares for funerals for the general starting Sunday.
Whatever that plan is, Ghaani likely will be involved.
On Friday Ghaani was quick to make threats of revenge against the US: "Be patient, and you will see the bodies of Americans all over the Middle East," he said.
