Senior IRGC officer among the dead in Israeli strike on Beirut that killed Nasrallah
Abbas Nilforoushan was deputy commander of Guards operations, was sanctioned by US for being ‘directly in charge of protest suppression’ after death of Mahsa Amini in police custody
A senior general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in Friday’s Israeli airstrike in Beirut that eliminated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, state media reported Saturday.
Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of Guards operations, “was killed in Israel’s attack on Lebanon that assassinated the Hezbollah chief,” said the official IRNA news agency.
Ahmad Reza Pour Khaghan, the deputy head of Iran’s judiciary, confirmed Nilforoushan’s death, describing him as a “guest to the people of Lebanon,” the state-run IRNA news agency said.
Khaghan also claimed that Iran had the right to retaliate under international law.
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 sanctions crushing its economy.
The US Treasury had identified Nilforoushan as the deputy commander for operations in the Guards.
There are some reports, still unconfirmed, that Abbas Nilforoushan, who has served as the #IRGCterrorists deputy commander for operations and recently assumed the portfolio of the late Mohammad Reza Zahedi as commander of the IRGC-QF's Department 2000, was in the bunker with… pic.twitter.com/wYkhYAGY5y
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) September 27, 2024
It sanctioned him in 2022 and said he was “directly in charge of protest suppression.”
Those sanctions came amid the months-long protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest for allegedly not wearing her headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of police.
Nilforoushan also served in Syria, backing Syrian President Bashar Assad in the country’s devastating years-long civil war that grew out of the 2011 Arab Spring.
Like many of his military colleagues, he began his career in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
In 2020, Iranian state television called him a “comrade” of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of its expeditionary Quds Force who was killed in a US drone attack in Baghdad that year.
The IRGC is a powerful political, military and economic force in Iran with close ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Set up after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the clerical ruling system, it has its own ground force, navy and air force that oversee Iran’s strategic weapons.
It exerts influence in the Middle East through its overseas operations arm, the Quds Force, by providing money, weapons, technology and training to allied groups: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Yemen’s Houthis and militias in Iraq.
Nilforoushan was killed alongside long-time Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and other top commanders of the terror group in a massive Israeli airstrike on their underground headquarters in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, as Israel sought to dramatically upend the year-long conflict.
Israel has eliminated much of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group’s most senior leadership in recent weeks.
In a statement, the IDF said that alongside Nasrallah, the commander of Hezbollah’s so-called Southern Front, Ali Karaki — who survived a recent assassination attempt — was also killed in the Friday afternoon strike, along with other top commanders in the terror group.
Nasrallah was targeted by dozens of bunker-busting bombs dropped by Israeli fighter jets while at Hezbollah’s main headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold known as the Dahiyeh.
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 Palestinian terror group Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7.
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, though Iran denies this.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
