Staff ReporterIran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has named Brig Gen Esmail Qaani, 63, as the new commander of the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The force was previously led by Gen Qasem Soleimani.
According to Tasnim news agency, Brig Gen Qaani joined the IRGC in 1980 and served in the 1980-88 war with Iraq. He joined the Quds force after the war.
He has previously spoken scathingly about the US, Israel and their regional allies.
In 2018, he called the 11 September 2001 terror attacks in the US an act of “self harm” by the US, accusing Washington of carrying them out in order to “create a mess” in the Middle East.
In that speech, Brig Gen Qaani said: “Americans spent $7,000bn in the region but they achieved nothing. America is the biggest debtor in the world now.”
