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On Monday, Iran officially acknowledged the death of Alireza Tangsiri, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ naval force. He was reportedly killed in an Israeli strike, an attack that Israel claims targeted the individual they hold responsible for obstructing the vital Strait of Hormuz.
The news of Tangsiri’s death was confirmed by a statement on the Sepah News website, a media outlet affiliated with the Guards. The announcement detailed that Tangsiri had “succumbed to severe injuries” suffered in the assault carried out the previous week.
Last Thursday, Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, revealed that an Israeli airstrike had eliminated Tangsiri. Katz described him as the figure primarily accountable for “the terrorist operation of mining and blocking the Strait of Hormuz,” a vital waterway whose disruption has significantly impacted global energy prices since the current conflict erupted two months ago.
In their statement, the Revolutionary Guards highlighted that Tangsiri had been engaged in organizing coastal defenses at the time of his death. The Guards also issued a defiant pledge, stating, “we will not rest until the enemy is completely destroyed,” stressing their continued commitment to their military objectives.
The Guards statement said he had been organising coastal defences when he was killed and vowed “that we will not rest until the enemy is completely destroyed”.
He is the latest top Iranian official to have been confirmed by Tehran to have been killed in the war.
Supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the war on February 28 and the Islamic republic’s powerful security chief, Ali Larijani, was killed earlier this month, along with over a dozen other prominent figures.
Katz had said senior officers of the naval command were killed in the strike that killed Tangsiri, without giving further details.
Tangsiri had vowed earlier in March to “deliver the harshest blows to the aggressor enemy while maintaining the strategy of closing the Strait of Hormuz”.
A veteran of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Tangsiri was one of the longest-serving senior figures in the force and one of its highest-profile faces within the Islamic republic.
He had been appointed by Khamenei in 2018 to head the naval branch of the Revolutionary Guards, whose task is to protect the Islamic republic from internal and external threats.
Under his leadership, the Guards’ navy had been significantly strengthened. In recent years, it has claimed responsibility for seizing numerous foreign vessels.
He was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 in a counter-terrorism related designation.
Israel and the United States have said they have dealt a major blow to Iran by killing top officials, but some analysts say the Islamic republic is still showing resilience and capacity to recover from setbacks.
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