Only a few hours have passed since the assassination of Major General Qassim Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, at dawn today, Friday, in Iraq, so that the Supreme Leader of the Iranian Revolution, Ali Khamenei, will announce the appointment of Brigadier Ismail Qani to succeed him.

In a statement posted on his official website, Khamenei said, "The position of the leadership of the Quds Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards was transmitted to Commander Brigadier Ismail Qani," and described the new commander as one of the most prominent leaders of the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Qani has held the position of Deputy Commander of the Quds Force, for nearly two decades, after he has been included in several positions within the Revolutionary Guard, most notably the Operations Command in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ismail Qani is seen as "the most militant shadow" of Soleimani, as Soleimani has always been the spotlight in the presence of several files and crises in the region, most notably Syria, and Iraq, where he was killed at dawn today moments after his arrival.

Qani - born in Mashhad (the center of Khorasan Province) in 1958 - is known for his support for Iranian interference in the countries of the region, especially Iraq, and Syria, where he considered the war to be "existential and fateful", in addition to having participated in it as a military advisor.

Iranian media describe him as a solid man who is not very different from Soleimani, and has sufficient experience in dealing with the various fronts of fighting, as he is known from the theorists of the concept of popular formations.

Qani was the first to disclose that the Houthi group in Yemen possessed missiles with a range of more than four hundred kilometers. He also revealed the details of a secret visit by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Iran last year, and he has statements about the role of the Quds Force in its completion.

According to sources in the Iranian opposition, Qaini played a major role in managing the Fatimiyoun Brigade, a militia that includes Afghan Shiite militants, formed in 2014 and who participated in the fighting to support the Assad regime in Syria.

In his report, the American Institute for Public Policy Research describes Qani as "an inconspicuous and less discriminatory military commander than Soleimani," but he considered Qani's experience on the battlefield, and within the IRGC, as well as his relationship with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, qualifying him to succeed Soleimani in The Jerusalem Legion Command.

The report published by the institute in January 2012 speculating Suleimani’s approach to politics, compared Soleimani to Qani, saying, “The records of the (Iranian-Iraqi) war indicate that there are fundamental differences between the two men. While Soleimani was a charismatic leader loved by the men who worked under his command, For me, a humble gentle young man with an innocent face, "according to the source.

However, there are also similarities between the two men, according to the institute’s report, which stated that both of them make passing statements about Iranian internal affairs. Both of them, for example, had comments on the Arab Spring revolutions.

His most prominent statements
- "The war in Syria was and still is an international war. The victory of the resistance front is one of Iranian pride, because of the great value it represents to the people."

- "The United States spent six trillion dollars on wars in the Middle East, but it did not succeed ... conspiracies and plots of enemies since the beginning of the revolution until now have been thwarted."

- "The war in Syria is a war on identity and I or not be ... Iran has officers and youth in Syria who tried the war for the first time in their lives, but today they are like leaders of the Iran-Iraq war, each of them can manage several military bases."

- "Threats against Iran will destroy America ... We have buried many of Trump's likes and know how to fight against America."

- "We are still clinging to the path that was drawn for us and Imam, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, preserved with pride and power, and we will proceed in this way ... and we will defend all oppressed peoples at the most extreme points of the world."