Esmail Qaani, leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, is alive and well under interrogations on suspicion of being a Zionist agent, the Middle East Eye reported, citing multiple sources. The Middle East Eye is a Qatar-funded British news outlet.
According to Sky News in Arabic, Qaani is under investigation on suspicion that his bureau chief passed information to Israel. Qaani suffered a heart attack during his interrogations and was transferred to the hospital for treatment.
مصادر إيرانية لسكاي نيوز عربية: قائد فيلق القدس #إسماعيل_قاآني يخضع للتحقيق بشأن تعرضه للاختراق | #سوشال_سكاي pic.twitter.com/yiiBwzXWvV
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According to MEE, Qaani remained out of the public eye following the heavy Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on September 27, an event that profoundly impacted Iran’s anti-Israel coalition. In the aftermath, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) initiated inquiries to determine how Israel managed to infiltrate the upper echelons of the Lebanese proxy terror group.
The MEE cited ten sources in Tehran, Beirut, and Baghdad, all of them prominent Shia individuals associated with Hezbollah and the IRGC, who said that Qaani and his team are currently under arrest as investigators pursue answers.
Concerns regarding the potential compromise of high-ranking Iranian commanders intensified following the reported death of Hashem Safieddine, who was expected to succeed Nasrallah, in an Israeli attack on a clandestine Hezbollah facility on October 4.
Sources indicate that Safieddine was likely killed during a session of Hezbollah’s Shura Council, which comprises the organization’s top leadership. Shortly after his arrival, he was struck by an explosion of such magnitude that it obliterated four residential buildings. It reportedly took bombing six residential buildings to kill Nasrallah.
Iranian investigations of Nasrallah’s death have also concentrated on the last movements of Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, a commander of the Quds Force, who was killed alongside the Hezbollah leader. Two sources affiliated with Hezbollah, along with Iraqi contacts knowledgeable about the situation, told MEE that Nasrallah had been outside the southern suburbs of Beirut the night before his assassination. However, he returned to the area to convene with Nilforoushan and several leaders of the party in their fortified operations center.
According to the sources, Nilforoushan, who had arrived in Beirut that evening from Tehran, was transported directly from the airport to the operations room below the residential neighborhood of Haret Hreik and arrived before Nasrallah did.
The attack that targeted the meeting took place shortly after Nasrallah had entered the room.
“The breach was 100 percent Iranian and there is no question about this part,” a source close to Hezbollah told MEE.