After almost two weeks of silence and unconfirmed rumors of his death, the commander of the elite "Quds Force" of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, General Esmail Qaani, has reappeared in public in Tehran. The 67-year-old officer was seen in Revolution Square, where he greeted a crowd waving Iranian flags and celebrating, according to official rhetoric, the "victory" over Israel after the 12-day conflict, De Re Militari reported.
Iranian media did not explain Qaani's absence during the escalation of tensions, nor did they reveal his whereabouts, which fueled rumors of his possible death. On June 13, the New York Times cited unnamed sources as saying that the general had been killed in an Israeli strike along with other senior Iranian officers. Israeli sources also suggested that Qaani had died in the first strikes on Tehran, but neither Iran nor Israel have officially confirmed the information.
Qaani took command of the "Al Quds" force in January 2020, after his predecessor, General Qassem Soleimani, was killed in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport on the direct orders of then-President Donald Trump. Soleimani was among the most influential figures in the Middle East and the architect of Iran's proxy strategy. His assassination sharply increased tensions between the United States and Iran, led to Iranian missile attacks on American bases in Iraq, and had a lasting impact on regional security.
Qaani's emergence comes in the context of a new phase in the conflict between Israel and Iran, in which the United States has once again played a decisive role. During the latest escalation, US President Trump ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites. They did not destroy the nuclear facilities, but led to the declaration of a fragile truce between the two countries.
The current US military actions have recalled the way Washington uses precision military strikes to send strategic signals. And if in 2020 Trump showed his resolve by killing Soleimani, today he is demonstrating a limited but targeted use of force that escalated the conflict to the brink of regional war - and stopped it just before the point of no return.