Iran confirmed Monday a targeted Israeli air strike killed the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval units, Alireza Tangsiri, who Israel held responsible for the blocking of the vital Strait of Hormuz.
A statement seen by AFP carried by the Guards’ Sepah News website said Alireza Tangsiri “succumbed to severe injuries” from the attack last Thursday.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced then an Israeli airstrike had killed Tangsiri, describing him as the “man who was directly responsible for the terrorist operation of mining and blocking the Strait of Hormuz,” as Breitbart News reported.
The head of the IRGC Navy intelligence directorate, Behnam Rezaei, was killed in the same strike on the port city of Bandar Abbas.
Since the start of the war now in its second month, Iran has imposed a de facto blockade on the key waterway, sending global energy prices spiralling even as the world prepares to respond with possible military force.
The IRGC statement said he had been organising coastal defences when he was eliminated and vowed “that we will not rest until the enemy is completely destroyed,” the AFP report noted.
Tangsiri was the head of the IRGC’s naval units and had repeatedly threatened a full blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime passageway for commercial shipping.
Iran’s threats against random commercial vessels in the strait have enabled a dramatic increase in the global price of petroleum products, particularly endangering supplies in east Asia.
“The IDF will hunt you down and eliminate you one by one,” Katz warned the Iranian regime leadership. “We will continue to operate in Iran with full force to achieve the objectives of the war.”
Tangsiri is the latest top Iranian official to have been confirmed by Tehran to have been killed in the war.
Next on the lost is believed to be General Hossein Salami, who is now in hiding and hasn’t been seen publicly since the combined U.S./Israel Operation epic Fury began.
The military chief, known for making bloodcurdling threats against Israel and the U.S. along with their allies, has previously declared, “The enemies of the Islamic nation, especially the criminal and terrorist Zionist gang, should await holy wrath and inevitable, severe revenge,” according to the semi-official Mehr News Agency.
Just where Iran is hiding Salami has yet to be determined.