Reports had speculated that Esmail Qaani had been killed in an IAF airstrikein Beirut or had a heart attack under interrogation as a possible Israel agent.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, showed up on Iranian television Monday night, squashing persistent rumors of his death.
A short clip on social media showed the white-haired leader of the IRGC unit that coordinates the activities of the country’s terror proxies wiping his face with a handkerchief and looking uncomfortable as he sat among dozens of other men.
Qaani was part of the audience at a ceremony in the Iraqi city of Karbala marking the return of the body of his colleague, Abbas Nilforoushan, who had been in the underground Beirut headquarters of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah along with some 20 Hezbollah commanders when the IDF destroyed it in an airstrike on September 27.
Rumors of his death began to surface after the IDF subsequently eliminated Nasrallah’s just-announced successor, Hashem Safieddine, early this month.
Reports said that Qaani was supposed to be at a meeting with Safieddine that Israeli jets bombed, and contact with the top terrorist had been lost after the hit.
Another rumor bandied about was that Qaani was being interrogated by his terror colleagues on suspicion of being an Israeli agent due to the successful elimination of both Nasrallah and Safieddine, as well as dozens of other senior Hezbollah officers over the last several weeks.
The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news site said that the terror leader was “subject to surveillance and isolation, after the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”
Sky News Arabic then reported that he was in the hospital after suffering a heart attack during interrogation.
Iranian officials had denied that he was dead or suspected of any wrongdoing, with Deputy Quds Force commander Iraj Masjedi saying last week that “He is in good health and is carrying out his activities.”
A Qaani adviser even told the Iranian Tasnim news site last Monday that his boss “will receive the Fath medal from the Supreme Leader in the coming days.”
The medal has been awarded to war heroes, military commanders and politicians since 1989.
Qaani had been appointed to his powerful position following the 2020 U.S. assassination of his legendary predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike on his car near Baghdad’s international airport.
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