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, known as Dahieh, during a strike that was reported to have targeted senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, but the official said he was not meeting Safieddine.
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Esmail Qaani, the general who replaced former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani
(Photo: AP)
A Hezbollah official said Israel was not allowing a search for Safieddine to progress after it bombed Beirut's southern suburbs on Thursday. The officials said the group would only announce Safieddine's fate when the search concluded.
Safieddine is seen as a likely successor to Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Dahieh on September 27.
The Iranian official said Iran and Hezbollah had not been able to contact Qaani, named by Tehran as the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards 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.
Israel has been hitting multiple targets in Dahieh as it pursues a campaign against Iran-backed Lebanese 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.
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.
Attack on Dahieh in Beirut
"When we have more specific results from that strike, we will share it. There are a lot of questions about who was there and who was not," he said during a briefing with reporters.
The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, oversees dealings with militias allied with Tehran across the Middle East, such as Hezbollah.
A senior Hezbollah official who was interviewed by an Iraqi media channel Sunday evening was asked about Qaani's disappearance, and replied: "I have no information, we are also looking for the truth in this issue."
Iran International, an opposition channel to the Ayatollah regime that broadcasts in Persian from London, reported Sunday that Qaani's family members confirmed that they have no details about his condition or his whereabouts - and that they are worried about his fate.
Earlier Sunday, the New York Times also reported on the disappearance of Qaani and it was claimed that the purpose of his trip to Beirut was to help Hezbollah officials recover from the wave of attacks in Lebanon. A member of the Revolutionary Guards stationed in Beirut said that the silence of the officials in Iran around Qaani has caused panic among the junior members of the Revolutionary Guards.
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