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.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Sunday confirmed Israel killed its intelligence chief Mohammad Kazemi. In a Fox News interview, Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said his country had killed Kazemi as part of a broader campaign targeting Iran's nuclear and military capability.

As the head of the secretive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami, was one of the most powerful men in Iran, overseeing its most potent military arm and reporting directly to its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.