Esmail Ghaani (8 August 1957-) was an Iranian IRGC Brigadier-General and commander of Quds Force from 3 January 2020, succeeding Qasem Soleimani.
Biography[]
Esmail Ghaani was born in Mashhad, Iran on 8 August 1957, and he served in the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s before becoming deputy head of Quds Force in 1997. He oversaw financial disbursements to Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah and the sending of arms to Iranian allies such as the government of The Gambia. On 3 January 2020, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed Ghaani as commander of Quds Force after Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani's death in a US airstrike on Baghdad.