‘Iran’s Quds Force chief out of contact since Beirut strikes’

BEIRUT Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, who travelled to Lebanon after the killing last month of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike, has not been heard from since strikes on Beirut late last week, two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters.

One of the officials said Qaani was in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh, during a strike that was reported to have targeted senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine but the official said he was not meeting Safieddine.

The official said Iran and Hezbollah had not been able to contact Qaani since then.

Israel has been hitting multiple targets in Dahiyeh as it pursues a campaign against Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.

The second official also said Qaani had travelled to Lebanon after the killing of Nasrallah and the Iranian authorities had not been able to contact him since the strike against Safieddine, who was widely expected to be the next Hezbollah chief.

Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Safieddine.

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 late 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.

The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, oversees dealings with militias allied with Tehran across the Middle East, such as Hezbollah.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan was killed with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit on Sept. 27 by Israeli bombs.