Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corp, which Israel has been battering with increasing intensity, were inevitably a prime target as the guardians of a regime built on hatred of the West and after decades of violent subversion often enacted with the aid of that other enemy of the West: Russia.

Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi was appointed to lead the group after his predecessor, Gen. Hossein Salami, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Iranian Major Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in Israel’s attack on the Islamic Republic, according to people familiar with the matter and Iranian media.