Amid the intensifying tensions in West Asia, there is widespread speculation regarding the whereabouts of Esmail Qaani, the Commander of the Quds Force within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The Iranian brigadier general travelled to Lebanon after the killing last month of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut.
While the Iranian media has been silent on his whereabouts, some Turkish and Israeli news outlets have claimed that Qaani could be dead.
The report about Qaani’s possible death was also covered by The New York Times, citing unnamed IRGC officials.
Here’s all we know about him.
Who is Esmail Qaani?
Qaani, 67, was born in Mashhad, a conservative Shi’ite Muslim religious city in northeastern Iran. He fought for the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
The IRGC brigadier general took over leadership of Iran’s foreign operations after Qassem Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020. He managed Tehran’s paramilitary allies across West Asia, as well as in other regions around the world.
According to people familiar with Qaani and Soleimani, and Western military and political analysts, Qaani has never commanded the same respect as his predecessor Soleimani or maintained the same close relationships among Iran’s allies in the Arab world.
Qaani became deputy commander of the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in 1997, when Soleimani became the Force’s chief commander.
When Qaani took over, he vowed to boot US forces out of West Asia in revenge for Soleimani’s killing.
“We promise to continue martyr Soleimani’s path with the same force… and the only compensation for us would be to remove America from the region,” state radio quoted Qaani as saying ahead of Soleimani’s funeral in Tehran.
Qaani has also had experience of overseas operations beyond Iran’s eastern borders, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. He does not speak Arabic, unlike Soleimani, who spoke fluently with Iraqi militias and Hezbollah commanders.
He has adopted less of a public persona than Soleimani and little information is available on him online or in leaked diplomatic cables.
Unlike Soleimani, who over the years was widely photographed on battlefields in Iraq and Syria alongside the militias Tehran has armed and trained, Qaani has preferred to keep a lower profile and conduct most of his meetings and visits to neighbouring countries in private.
Where is he?
Qaani travelled to Beirut to convene with Hezbollah officials amid the Israeli strikes on the terror organisation.
He has not been heard from since strikes in Beirut last week, according to Reuters, which quoted two senior Iranian security officials.
One of the officials said Qaani was in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Dahiyeh, during a strike that was reported to have targeted Nasrallah’s presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine. Safieddine has also been reportedly unreachable after the strikes.
Two days after Nasrallah was eliminated, Qaani was seen in Hezbollah’s Tehran offices. His absence was noted during the Friday prayers of Hezbollah’s chief, led by Iran’s Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Some media reports speculated that Qaani could have been put under increased surveillance due to fear of Israeli operations after Iran’s missile strikes on October 1.
Did the Israeli strikes kill Qaani?
According to the Israeli N12 news, Qaani may have been wounded in the Israeli strike.
Another Israeli news outlet, Channel 12, claimed that while Lebanese authorities confirmed Qaani’s death, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have not confirmed this.
Several Saudi news channels further suggested that the Iranian commander might have been executed by Iran on suspicion of collaborating with Israel’s spy agency, Mossad.
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 last week against Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut.
“When we have more specific results from that strike, we will share it. There’s a lot of questions about who was there and who was not,” he told a briefing with reporters.
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.
Notably, Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan was killed with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit on September 27 by Israeli bombs.
How will his death affect Iran?
If the reports of his demise were true, it would be a massive blow for Iran and a big coup for Israel, which promised to retaliate after Iran’s missile attack last week.
According to the Dailymail, experts believe Qaani’s death would severely weaken Tehran’s military capability, but it will also further inflame tensions in the spiralling conflict.
Also, he is Tehran’s main contact with Hezbollah and other terror groups that are Iran’s proxies, such as the Houthis in Yemen and Iraqi militia outfits.
For those uninitiated, Qaani’s missing reports come as Israel’s military said on Saturday that its forces had killed more than 400 Hezbollah fighters since it launched ground operations inside southern Lebanon.
In one of the most powerful raids, Israel conducted 11 consecutive strikes on Beirut.
“Since the beginning of the (ground) manoeuvre, forces have eliminated some 440 terrorists from the ground and from the air, including 30 commanders of various ranks,” military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing.
Source » firstpost