Nasser Shabani ( fa, ناصر شعبانی; – 13 March 2020) was an Iranian general and senior commander of

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...

(IRGC). He took credit for using Houthi rebels to target Saudi oil tankers.

Career

Shabani began his military career in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq War. He participated in suppressing the Amol uprising the same year. In the final year of the Iran-Iraq War, he was promoted to become one of several fronts of

. He played a key role in

Operation Mersad Operation Forough Javidan ( fa, عملیات فروغ جاویدان, ''Operation Eternal Light'', MeK's codename) and Operation Mersad ( fa, عملیات مرصاد, ''Operation Ambush'', Iranian codename) were among the last major militar ...

, and later wrote several books about the war. In 2011, he succeeded the president of the university of Imam Hussein and became one of the deputies of the

Sar-Allah Headquarters , image = , image_size = , alt = , caption = , dates = 1995 - present , disbanded = , country = , allegiance = , branch = Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , type = , role = Internal security , size = , command_structure = Islamic Rev ...

. In 2018, he stated in Iranian state media that the IRGC ordered the Houthi forces in

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

to attack two Saudi oil tankers on the

Bab al-Mandab Strait Bab or BAB can refer to: *Bab (toponymy), a component of Arabic toponyms literally meaning "gate" * Set (mythology) (also known as Bab, Baba, or Seth) ancient Egyptian God * Bab (Shia Islam), a term designating deputies of the Imams in Shia Islam ...

Death

Shabani died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on 13 March 2020.

References

2020 deaths Place of birth missing Year of birth missing Place of death missing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps brigadier generals Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran 1950s births {{COVID-19-stub