Iran vows revenge for top IRGC officer killed in Beirut strike that took out Nasrallah
Tehran’s foreign minister says ‘horrible crime’ will ‘not go unanswered,’ threatens diplomatic and legal steps; vice president says Iran will choose time, place for response
Iran vowed revenge Sunday over Israel’s killing of a top Revolutionary Guard official in Friday’s major Beirut strike that also resulted in the assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a statement that the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Deputy Commander Abbas Nilforoushan “will not go unanswered.”
“This horrible crime of the aggressor Zionist regime will not go unanswered,” the top diplomat said, according to a foreign ministry statement.
“The diplomatic apparatus will also use all its political, diplomatic, legal and international capacities to pursue the criminals and their supporters,” he added.
Nilforoushan, a top commander of the Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign operations arm, was killed in Friday’s Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
Iranian officials have also strongly condemned the killing of Nasrallah, whose powerful Lebanese terror group has been armed and financed by the Islamic Republic for decades. Ahmad Reza Pour Khaghan, the deputy head of Iran’s judiciary, confirmed Nilforoushan’s death in the same strike, describing him Saturday as a “guest to the people of Lebanon,” the state-run IRNA news agency said.
Khaghan also argued that Iran had the right to retaliate under international law.
On Sunday, Iran’s vice president for strategic affairs, Javad Zarif, said a response “will occur at the appropriate time and at Iran’s choice, and decisions will definitely be made at the leadership level, at the highest level of the state,” official news agency IRNA reported.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state, has offered his condolences for Nasrallah’s “martyrdom” and declared five days of public mourning. He has also moved to a secure location.
The secretary of Iran’s Guardian Council, Ahmad Jannati, said Israel will “receive a forceful answer,” threatening “the destruction of the Zionist regime,” according to Fars news agency.
The killing of Nilforoushan further ratchets up pressure on Iran to respond, even as Tehran has signaled in recent months that it wants to negotiate with the West over its nuclear program and the sanctions crushing its economy.
In April, Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones to avenge seven IRGC members, including two generals, who were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike on a building near Tehran’s consulate in Damascus on April 1.
That attack was almost entirely intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems, working in cooperation with a US-coordinated alliance of countries including Britain, France, Jordan and other allied Middle East countries. The few projectiles that made it through did minor damage, although a young girl was seriously injured by falling shrapnel.
In late July, Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based leader of the Gazan Palestinian terror group Hamas, was assassinated while visiting Tehran, in an operation widely attributed to Israel, which hasn’t confirmed or denied it.
The New York Times reported Saturday that the Iranian leadership is divided on how to respond to the Beirut strike.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Sunday that Iran-aligned armed groups would carry on confronting Israel with Tehran’s help, Iranian state media reported.
An alliance known as the Axis of Resistance, built up over decades with Iranian support, includes the Palestinian terror group Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen’s Houthis, and various Shiite Muslim armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
“We will not hesitate to go to any level in order to help the resistance,” Qalibaf said.
He also issued a warning to the United States.
“The US is complicit in all of these crimes and… has to accept the repercussions,” he said.
Some Iranians on Sunday took to the streets of several cities across the country to express their anger at the killings of the IRGC’s Nilforoushan as well as Hezbollah’s Nasrallah.
Iran and Israel have been locked in a shadow war for decades, with mutual allegations of sabotage and assassination plots.
The conflict, including between Israel and Hezbollah, has intensified in the past year in parallel with the Gaza war, which erupted after Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there. Over the past couple of weeks, fighting ballooned with Israel hammering Hezbollah’s leadership and infrastructure as the terror group barraged the north with rockets and drones raising fears it could ignite a regional war.
Iran does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Khamenei has previously called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.” Israel says that Iran poses an existential threat and says Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.
