The commander of Iran's elite Quds Force, Esmail Qaani is under investigation for ties to Israel, according to media reports and had suffered a heart attack during interrogations.
"He was investigated for an intelligence brief, a source told Sky News Arabic. "He was moved to a hospital and his bureau chief is suspected of connections with Israel."
Senior Iranian security officials said Qaani, who replaced Qasem Soleimani, the legendary commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds force killed by the U.S. in 2020, disappeared after an Israeli strike last week that targeted Hezbollah's deputy chief and head of internal security Hashem Sefieddine who was designated to replace the slain Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli strike on the Dahieh last month.
Contact with Sefieddine was also lost after the attack and he is believed to have been killed, although Israel has not confirmed it.
IDF strike on Hezbollah leaders in Dahieh
A source told the Reuters news agency that Qaani was in Dahieh when the IDF attacked but did not attend the meeting with Nasrallah's designated replacement. Another source said the Quds force commander had traveled to Beirut after the assassination of Hezbollah's chief and was last seen on Sunday of last week when he visited Hezbollah's offices in Tehran and photographed there with Sefieddine's brother Abdullah.
The New York Times reported that Qaani traveled to Lebanon to help Hezbollah regroup after Nasrallah's killing. A source in the IRGC in Beirut told the paper that the commander's disappearance and the silence from officials in Tehran were causing panic in the ranks.
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Esmail Qaani with Abdullah Sefieddine in Tehran in what may be his last known photograph
Rumors about his fate spread quickly and varied between him having died to him being kept in isolation after the assassinations carried out by Israel on prominent Iranian leaders. According to a report published in the Saudi Al Hadath channel Qaani had recently met with Nasrallah and Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah's operations chief who was also assassinated by Israel
The channel said he backed out of his original plan to attend the high-level Hezbollah meeting that was then targeted by the IDF and that led to increased suspicion.
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