Iranian Quds Force chief said missing after visit to bombarded Beirut suburb
Iranian security officials say Esmail Qaani has not been heard from since a strike hit the area of Beirut he was in last week, reportedly with Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine
Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, who traveled to Lebanon after the killing last month of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike, has not been heard from since strikes on Beirut late last week, two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters.
One of the officials said Qaani was in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh, during a strike that was reported to have targeted senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine but the official said he was not meeting Safieddine.
The Iranian official said Iran and Hezbollah had not been able to contact Qaani.
Qaani was selected by Tehran to lead Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ overseas military intelligence service — or Quds Force — after the United States assassinated his predecessor Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in 2020. The IRGC is a US-designated terrorist organization.
Israel has been hitting multiple targets in Dahiyeh as it pursues a campaign against Iran-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
The second Iranian official also said Qaani had traveled to Lebanon after the killing of Nasrallah and the Iranian authorities had not been able to contact him since the strike against Safieddine, who was widely expected to be the next Hezbollah chief.
Hezbollah has claimed that Israel is obstructing search and rescue efforts in the area where Safieddine is thought to have been when he was hit, and said it will not comment his fate until search efforts are concluded.
Asked about reports that Qaani may have been killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut, Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said the results of the strikes were still being assessed.
He said that Israel had conducted an attack late last week against Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut.
“When we have more specific results from that strike, we will share it. There’s a lot of questions about who was there and who was not,” he told a briefing with reporters.
The Quds Force, the overseas arm of the IRGC, oversees dealings with Iran’s proxy groups across the Middle East, which include Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Revolutionary Guards commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan was killed with Nasrallah in his bunker on September 27.
In response to the killing of Nasrallah and Nilforoushan, as well as the deaths of other senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders in recent months — Iran launched some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last Tuesday, its second-ever direct attack.
While Iran hailed the attack as a great success, and the IDF confirmed that two bases were hit in the attack, the army also said that none of the air force’s operational capabilities were harmed in any way.
Most of the incoming missiles were either intercepted by air defenses or landed in open areas. However, the attack sent 10 million Israelis rushing for cover and caused damage to civilian structures as well, including a school.
Israel has yet to retaliate for the attack but has vowed a significant response as it mulls the potential targets it would hit.
Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report.
