The IRGC Quds Force, once Iran’s most feared instrument of extraterritorial power projection, has been systematically dismantled through a combination of targeted killings, global terrorist designations, and unprecedented military strikes. What began with the January 2020 drone strike that killed commander Qasem Soleimani outside Baghdad International Airport has escalated into a full-scale international campaign against the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — culminating in the February 2026 joint US-Israeli strikes that destroyed IRGC headquarters, killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and left the Quds Force’s current commander missing under mysterious circumstances. The trajectory from a single assassination to organizational destruction took six years.
In that span, the IRGC went from being designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States alone to facing terrorist listings from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Ecuador, the EU, Israel, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United States. The February 28, 2026 strikes dropped approximately 6,500 bombs across Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj, and Kermanshah, killing at least 10 IRGC commanders and scientists, destroying 43 Iranian warships, and leveling the IRGC, Quds Force, and Basij paramilitary headquarters. As CENTCOM bluntly stated: “The IRGC no longer has a headquarters.” This article traces the full arc from Soleimani’s killing through the global designation cascade, the military campaign against Iran, and the strange disappearance of Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani — including what these developments mean for Iran’s proxy network and the broader Middle East.
Table of Contents
- How Did the IRGC Quds Force Go From Losing Soleimani to Being Targeted as an Entire Organization?
- The Global Designation Cascade That Isolated the IRGC
- Iran’s Defiant Response and the Retaliatory Designation of EU Armies
- The February 2026 Strikes — From Sanctions to Kinetic Destruction
- The Mystery of Qaani — Survival, Disappearance, and Espionage Allegations
- IRGC Operations on US Soil — The Merchant Conviction
- What Comes Next for the IRGC and Iran’s Proxy Network
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
How Did the IRGC Quds Force Go From Losing Soleimani to Being Targeted as an Entire Organization?
The killing of Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020 removed a figure who had commanded the Quds Force since 1998 and personally orchestrated Iran’s network of proxy forces across the Middle East. Soleimani had built relationships with Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and shia militias operating in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. His replacement, Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, inherited the apparatus but never commanded the same personal authority or operational mystique. The Quds Force is one of five branches within the IRGC, specializing in unconventional warfare and extraterritorial operations — essentially Iran’s shadow foreign policy arm. Removing its architect was significant, but the infrastructure remained intact. What changed the calculus was the decision to target the organization itself rather than just its leaders. The US had already designated the entire IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on April 15, 2019 — the first time any branch of a foreign government’s military received that label.
The Quds Force specifically had been designated as an FTO since October 2007, alongside individual sanctions on Soleimani and IRGC Commander Hosein Salami. But designations are paper tools. The shift from sanctions and designations to kinetic destruction of the IRGC’s physical infrastructure represents a fundamentally different approach — one that moved from containment to dismantlement. The comparison is worth noting: after Soleimani’s death, the prevailing assumption was that Iran’s proxy network would continue operating under new management. And for several years, it did. The Quds Force continued supplying Shahed drones to Russia for use in Ukraine, maintained its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and kept its militia networks active across Iraq. The lesson Washington and its allies appeared to draw was that decapitation strikes against individual commanders were insufficient. The entire organizational structure had to be addressed.
The Global Designation Cascade That Isolated the IRGC
Between 2024 and early 2026, a remarkable international consensus formed around designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Canada listed the IRGC as a terrorist entity in June 2024. Australia followed in November 2025, formally listing the IRGC as a State Sponsor of Terrorism under the Criminal Code Amendment Act 2025. Argentina’s President Milei signed a decree designating the IRGC Quds Force as a terrorist organization on January 17, 2026. Ukraine designated the IRGC on February 2, 2026, citing both iran‘s crackdown on domestic protesters and its supply of Shahed drones to Russia for use against Ukrainian civilians. The most consequential designation came from the European Union. On January 29, 2026, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council reached political agreement to designate the entire IRGC as a terrorist organization, citing Iran’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
The formal listing followed on February 19, 2026, when the EU Council added the IRGC to the EU terrorist list under Common Position 2001/931/CFSP. This was significant because the EU had resisted this step for years, with member states arguing it would close diplomatic channels with Tehran. The fact that even the EU crossed this threshold reflected how thoroughly Iran had burned its bridges. However, designations carry different practical weight depending on the country issuing them. The US designation, backed by the Treasury Department’s OFAC enforcement apparatus, carries real financial teeth — as demonstrated by the October 2025 sanctions on eight individuals and entities supporting the IRGC and Iran-aligned militia groups in Iraq, and the July 2025 sanctions targeting Iran’s “shadow banking” network linked to the IRGC. The EU designation freezes assets and bans IRGC members from European territory but has historically been slower to enforce. Smaller countries like Paraguay and Ecuador have issued designations that are largely symbolic. The practical impact of this cascade depends entirely on enforcement mechanisms, and those vary wildly across the eleven nations that have now listed the IRGC.
Iran’s Defiant Response and the Retaliatory Designation of EU Armies
Iran’s reaction to the mounting designations revealed a government increasingly cornered but unwilling to concede ground. Tehran slammed the EU designation as “selective outrage” and insisted the IRGC is a “counterterror” force — a characterization that strains credibility given the IRGC’s documented support for militia groups across the region and its role in suppressing domestic protests. On February 1, 2026, Iran retaliated by designating EU armies as “terrorist groups,” a move that was legally meaningless but politically pointed. It signaled that Tehran viewed the designation campaign as an act of hostility equivalent to a military threat. The retaliatory designation illustrated a broader pattern in Iran’s diplomatic playbook: mirror the accusation back at the accuser. When the US designated the IRGC in 2019, Iran designated US Central Command as a terrorist organization.
When the EU followed suit in 2026, Iran designated European militaries. These counter-designations have no practical enforcement mechanism — no European soldier’s assets will be frozen by Tehran, and no EU military operations will be disrupted. But they serve a domestic propaganda function, allowing the regime to frame itself as standing firm against Western aggression. What Iran could not dismiss so easily was the breadth of the coalition against the IRGC. When the designation came only from the United States, Tehran could frame it as American unilateralism. When it came from the US, the EU, Australia, Canada, Ukraine, and a half-dozen other nations, that narrative became harder to sustain. The designation cascade also had a compounding financial effect: each new listing closed off additional banking channels, shipping routes, and commercial relationships that the IRGC had used to fund its operations and evade earlier sanctions.
The February 2026 Strikes — From Sanctions to Kinetic Destruction
On February 28, 2026, the campaign against the IRGC shifted from economic and legal pressure to direct military action. Joint US-Israeli strikes hit military and government sites across five Iranian cities: Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj, and Kermanshah. The stated aims were regime change and targeting Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs — objectives that went far beyond anything previous US administrations had attempted against Iran. The scale was staggering: over 200 Israeli strikes, approximately 6,500 bombs dropped in a single week, at least 10 IRGC commanders and scientists killed, and 43 Iranian warships destroyed. The physical destruction of the IRGC’s command infrastructure was deliberate and thorough. The IDF destroyed the IRGC headquarters, the IRGC Quds Force headquarters, and the Basij paramilitary headquarters.
These were not symbolic targets — they were the nerve centers through which Iran coordinated its proxy operations across the Middle East. CENTCOM’s statement that “the IRGC no longer has a headquarters” was not rhetorical flourish; it was a factual description of what the strikes accomplished. The Basij, the IRGC’s domestic paramilitary wing that had been instrumental in suppressing protests, lost its command structure as well. The tradeoff inherent in this approach is significant. Strikes of this magnitude risk destabilizing a country of 88 million people, creating refugee flows, and potentially strengthening hardliners rather than weakening them. The IRGC, despite the destruction, vowed “intense war” in response — suggesting the organization’s ideology survived even as its physical infrastructure did not. The killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the February 28 strikes, confirmed by Iran on March 1, removed the ultimate authority figure in the Iranian system, but the rapid election of his son Mojtaba Khamenei as successor on March 8 demonstrated that the regime’s succession mechanisms, however improvised, remained functional.
The Mystery of Qaani — Survival, Disappearance, and Espionage Allegations
Perhaps the strangest chapter in the IRGC’s unraveling is the fate of Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani. He reportedly survived the February 28 strike that killed Khamenei by leaving the location just minutes before missile impact. Since then, he has vanished from public view entirely. For the commander of Iran’s most important military intelligence branch to simply disappear during a national crisis is extraordinary — and the explanations being floated are even more so. Unverified reports claim the IRGC has detained or executed Qaani on suspicion of spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence service. Tehran has not confirmed these reports, which remain in the realm of rumor.
But the mere circulation of such allegations reflects the depth of paranoia within the IRGC’s leadership. If the reports are true, it would mean Iran’s most sensitive military operations were compromised at the highest level — potentially explaining the precision of the strikes that destroyed IRGC infrastructure. If the reports are false, Qaani’s disappearance raises equally troubling questions: is the Quds Force commander in hiding, incapacitated, or simply unable to exercise command? The warning here is against drawing premature conclusions. Intelligence agencies and media outlets have repeatedly gotten the status of senior Iranian figures wrong. Qaani was reported dead or detained multiple times during the 2024 Lebanon conflict, only to resurface. The fog of war, combined with Iran’s information-control apparatus, makes verification nearly impossible. What can be stated with confidence is that the Quds Force is currently operating without visible senior leadership — a situation that would have been unthinkable during Soleimani’s two-decade tenure.
IRGC Operations on US Soil — The Merchant Conviction
The IRGC’s threat extends beyond the Middle East, as demonstrated by a federal jury conviction on March 6, 2026. Asif Merchant, an IRGC operative, was convicted of murder-for-hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism. According to the Department of Justice, Merchant admitted that the IRGC sent him to the United States to arrange political assassinations and steal documents.
The conviction underscored that even as the IRGC’s physical headquarters were being leveled in Tehran, its operatives were actively attempting to carry out attacks on American soil. This case was not an isolated incident. The DOJ has prosecuted multiple IRGC-linked plots targeting dissidents, journalists, and political figures in the United States and allied nations. The Merchant conviction is notable because the defendant explicitly admitted the IRGC’s institutional role in directing his activities — providing direct evidence of state-sponsored terrorism rather than the more ambiguous “lone actor inspired by” framing that sometimes complicates such cases.
What Comes Next for the IRGC and Iran’s Proxy Network
The IRGC faces a convergence of pressures that would challenge any military organization: its headquarters destroyed, its leadership killed or missing, its government under new and untested authority, and its international standing reduced to pariah status across most of the developed world. Lebanon banned the IRGC from operating within its territory on March 5, 2026 — a development that would have been unthinkable when Hezbollah, the IRGC’s most capable proxy, dominated Lebanese politics. The proxy network that Soleimani spent decades building is under unprecedented strain.
Whether the IRGC can reconstitute itself depends on factors that remain unclear: the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s willingness and ability to rebuild, the extent of actual damage to the Quds Force’s officer corps and operational networks, and whether the international community maintains its current level of pressure or reverts to the inconsistent enforcement that allowed the IRGC to operate through sanctions for years. The organization has demonstrated resilience before — it survived the Iran-Iraq War, decades of sanctions, and repeated leadership losses. But it has never faced the simultaneous destruction of its physical infrastructure, the killing of its supreme leader, the disappearance of its Quds Force commander, and near-universal international designation as a terrorist organization. The six years between Soleimani’s killing and today have transformed the IRGC from a feared regional power broker into an organization fighting for its institutional survival.
Conclusion
The arc from Soleimani’s assassination in January 2020 to the IRGC’s current state in March 2026 represents one of the most dramatic organizational declines in modern military history. A force that projected Iranian power from Lebanon to Afghanistan through a sophisticated network of proxies, intelligence operations, and unconventional warfare now lacks a functioning headquarters, visible senior leadership, and international legitimacy. The global designation cascade — from the US in 2019 through the EU in 2026 — closed off financial networks, while the February 2026 military strikes destroyed the physical infrastructure those networks supported.
The critical question going forward is whether destruction of the IRGC’s conventional structure will actually reduce Iran’s capacity for asymmetric warfare and proxy operations, or whether it will drive those activities further underground and make them harder to track and counter. The Merchant conviction in the United States demonstrates that IRGC operatives were active on US soil even as the organization’s headquarters burned in Tehran. Organizations built for unconventional warfare do not necessarily need conventional headquarters to function. The international community’s ability to sustain pressure — through continued sanctions enforcement, intelligence cooperation, and accountability for IRGC operatives — will determine whether the current moment represents a lasting strategic shift or a temporary disruption before the next iteration of Iranian proxy warfare emerges.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the IRGC Quds Force?
The Quds Force is one of five branches of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, specializing in unconventional warfare and extraterritorial operations. It supports non-state armed groups including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and various Shia militias across Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. It has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States since October 2007.
Which countries have designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization?
As of March 2026, the IRGC is designated as a terrorist organization by Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Ecuador, the European Union, Israel, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United States. Lebanon banned IRGC operations within its territory in March 2026.
Who leads the IRGC Quds Force now?
Brigadier General Esmail Qaani was appointed commander after Soleimani’s death in 2020. However, Qaani has vanished from public view since surviving the February 28, 2026 strikes. Unverified reports suggest he may have been detained or executed by the IRGC on suspicion of espionage for Israel, though Tehran has not confirmed these claims. His current status remains unknown.
What happened to Iran’s Supreme Leader?
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint US-Israeli strikes on February 28, 2026. His death was confirmed by Iran on March 1. On March 8, 2026, Mojtaba Khamenei, his son, was elected as the new Supreme Leader.
Was the IRGC involved in plots on US soil?
Yes. On March 6, 2026, a federal jury convicted Asif Merchant, an IRGC operative, of murder-for-hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism. He admitted the IRGC sent him to the United States to arrange political assassinations and steal documents.