section_path: Career
section_name: Career
paragraph_text: Career
  
  After joining the IRGC when the Iran–Iraq War started in 1980, Salami rose through the ranks, becoming deputy commander.
  
  In January 2019, Salami said: "We will fight them on the global level, not just in one spot. Our war is not a local war. We have plans to defeat the world powers".
  
  On 21 April 2019, Ali Khamenei appointed him as the new commander-in-chief of the IRGC, replacing Mohammad Ali Jafari, who had held the post since September 2007.
  
  On 7 January 2020, Salami spoke at the funeral of his comrade in arms and IRGC Quds Force subordinate, Qasem Soleimani, who had been killed the previous Friday near Iraq's Baghdad International Airport by a US airstrike: "I say the last word at the beginning: we will take revenge... a revenge that will be tough, strong, decisive and finishing, and will make them regret".
  
  In the matter of 8 January 2020 shootdown of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 by IRGC missiles, killing 176 people, on 13 January Salami went to the Parliament of Iran and said,
  
  We did make a mistake. Some of our compatriots were martyred because of our mistake but it was unintentional... In my all lifetime I haven't been as sorry as much as now. Never... I wish I had been on board and burned with them... May God forgive us and then after that the Iranian people and the families of the victims.
  
  In the aftermath of the April 2024 Iranian attack on Israel, Salami stated,
  
  Our information on all of the hits is not complete yet but on that part of the hits that we have accurate, documented and field-related reports show that this operation has been carried out with a success that exceeded the expectation.
  
  One Israeli-Bedouin civilian was critically injured by shrapnel, and 31 others were treated for minor injuries or post-traumatic stress.