Who is Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Basij forces?

If confirmed, the death of Soleimani would mark one of the highest-level assassinations in the ongoing war.Published On 17 Mar 2026The Israeli military claims to have killed Brigadier General Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary forces.The 62-year-old was the commander of the country’s most powerful internal security forces for the past six years and a veteran of the Iran-iraq-war" class="entity-link entity-event" data-entity-id="10188" data-entity-type="event">Iran-Iraq War, having fought on the front lines.Israeli Defence Minister Israel-katz" class="entity-link entity-person" data-entity-id="4249" data-entity-type="person">Israel Katz said on Tuesday that Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was also killed in an overnight strike.Tehran has neither confirmed nor denied the high-profile killings, which would be considered a major blow to the government.If confirmed, Soleimani and Larijani would be the highest-level killings since Israeli and United States strikes killed former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his top aides on the first day of the war on February 28.As US and Israeli forces increasingly target the Basij and other military apparatuses, Soleimani had emerged as a central figure in a war that has seen Iran’s top political and military figures killed.From front-line volunteer to generalSoleimani was born in 1964 in the city of Farsan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province. His military career was forged in the trenches of the 1980-1988 Iran-iraq-war" class="entity-link entity-event" data-entity-id="10188" data-entity-type="event">Iran-Iraq War.He is not related to Qassem Soleimani, the late commander of the Quds Force, the elite clandestine wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), who was assassinated in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.In the spring of 1981, Gholamreza Soleimani deployed to the Shush front lines at the Iraq border as a teenage volunteer. Over the gruelling eight-year conflict, he participated in several major offensives, including Operations Tariq al-Qods, Fath ol-Mobin and Beit ol-Moqaddas, serving as both a fighter and a battalion commander.