The commander of the elite division "Quds" of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Esmail Kaani is missing after Israeli strikes in Beirut at the end of the week, two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters, BTA reported.
Qaani traveled to Lebanon after the assassination of the leader of “Hezbollah” Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike. According to one of the sources, Qaani was in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiya at the time of an airstrike believed to have targeted a senior “Hezbollah” Hashem Saffieddin, considered a likely future successor to Nasrallah. However, the Iranian representative clarified that Kaani was not in a meeting with him.
The source reported that since then the Iranian authorities have not been able to establish contact with the commander of the “Quds” unit.
„Quds“ is the overseas wing of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and deals with paramilitary organizations allied to Iran in the Middle East, such as “Hezbollah”.
High-ranking IRGC commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan was killed along with Nasrallah in his bunker in an Israeli airstrike on September 27.