Esmail Qaani was born in Mashhad, in north-eastern Iran, and fought for the Revolutionary Guard during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. ABC News put his age at 67 in October 2024. Today he runs the Quds Force, the Guards’ arm for extraterritorial operations, a job he got only because a US drone strike in Baghdad killed the man who held it.
How he got the job
Qasem Soleimani died on January 3, 2020. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei moved fast, appointing Soleimani’s deputy and telling the force that its orders “remain exactly as they were” under the dead commander. Qaani had worked beside Soleimani as deputy since the late 1990s, according to ABC.
IranWire traced his record further back: he joined the Guards in 1981 at the age of 20, served in Kurdistan Province, helped form a Guards division from Khorasan in December 1982, and later led the Fifth Nasr Division. Khamenei bypassed several better-known names to choose him.
A quieter style
The contrast with his predecessor is the point most analysts make. Soleimani liked to be photographed with fighters at the front. Qaani has kept a lower profile and, in the view of Western political and military experts quoted by ABC, did not maintain the same close ties with regional allies. A 2012 American Enterprise Institute profile called him “uncharismatic” and described a speaker who hides behind official rhetoric.
Annalisa Perteghella, a researcher at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, told AFP in 2020 that he lacks Soleimani’s charisma and his understanding of the Arab Levant. Early on she expected continuity and harsh rhetoric, with change possible over the long term.
What the force does
The Quds Force keeps close contact with Iran-backed militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and groups in Iraq. In Yemen it gives what the Guards call “moral support” to the Houthis. It was also active on the ground in Syria, where analysts believe it took significant losses. Some analysts argue the Guards are built to survive the loss of any one figure; Francois Heisbourg of the Foundation for Strategic Research said Soleimani “was in every sense replaceable.”
Qaani himself promised, on taking command, to push US forces out of the Middle East. In October 2024 his whereabouts became a subject of speculation after Reuters reported two senior Iranian officials as saying he was missing, with one placing him in Beirut during an Israeli strike. Deputy commander Iraj Masjedi denied he had been harmed, and Qaani’s adviser Ebrahim Jabbari told Tasnim he was in perfect health and would receive the Fath medal. Iranian state television then aired footage that appeared to show him at a memorial ceremony for a senior Guards commander killed in Lebanon.
Sources
- Iran Appoints Esmail Qaani as Commander, Succeeding General Killed in Air Strike
- Soleimani successor: continuity figure in uncertain times (AFP)
- Who is Ismail Qaani, the New Commander of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force
- Who is Iran's Quds Force general Esmail Qaani and where is he now?
