Esmail Qaani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, is alive and unhurt but under guard and being questioned as Iran investigates major security breaches, multiple sources have told Middle East Eye, APA reports.
Qaani has not been seen in public since Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a massive air strike on Beirut on 27 September.
Since then, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has opened investigations into how Israel was able penetrate the Lebanese movement’s most senior leadership and identify where and when Nasrallah would be found.
Ten sources in Tehran, Beirut and Baghdad, including senior Shia figures and sources close to Hezbollah and in the IRGC, told MEE that even Qaani, one of Iran’s most senior generals, and his team are under lockdown as investigators seek answers.
Suspicions that senior Iranian commanders may have been compromised were compounded when Nasrallah’s presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine, was apparently killed in another powerful Israeli strike on a secret subterranean Hezbollah base on 4 October.
Qaani arrived in Lebanon two days after the killing of Nasrallah, accompanied by several IRGC commanders and other figures “to assess the situation on the ground”, according to MEE's sources.
But after the attack on Safieddine all contact was lost with him for two days, they added.
Speculation has mounted online and in the media that Qaani was wounded or killed in Israel’s continuous bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs.
But a source in the IRGC and senior Iraqi officials told MEE that the Quds Force leader was not wounded and was not with Safieddine at the Shura Council meeting.
On Tuesday, Iraj Masjedi, deputy commander of the Quds Force and former Iranian ambassador to Baghdad, told reporters that Qaani is “in good health and is carrying out his daily duties”.
However, eight sources from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon said he is being detained while investigations continue.
“The Iranians have serious suspicions that the Israelis have infiltrated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, especially those working in the Lebanese arena, so everyone is currently under investigation,” the commander of an armed faction close to Iran told MEE.
“Nothing is certain at the moment. The investigations are still ongoing and all possibilities are open.”
“The breach was 100 percent Iranian and there is no question about this part,” a source close to Hezbollah told MEE.
Lebanese and Iraqi sources have described Qaani as being “under house arrest” and said he is currently being questioned by figures under the direct supervision of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Qaani became head of the Quds Force, the IRGC’s overseas unit, after the US killing of its previous leader, Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020.
The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader, in Tehran in July had heightened suspicions that Iran's security forces had been badly penetrated.
“The Iranians are now trying to determine the extent of the breach and its source. The signs indicate that the source is the Revolutionary Guard, but it is not possible to be certain at this stage,” the commander said.
Zulfiyya Orujaliyeva
Follow us on Telegram
t.me/apanewsaz
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
