Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, who travelled to Lebanon after the martyrdom of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last month in an Israeli airstrike, has not been heard from since strikes on Beirut late last week, according to two senior Iranian security officials.
One of the officials said Qaani was in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh, during a strike on Thursday 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 relentlessly striking multiple targets in Dahiyeh as it aggressively pursues its campaign against the 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.
The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), oversees dealings with militias allied with Tehran across the Middle East, such as Hezbollah.
IRGC commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan was killed with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit on Sept. 27 by Israeli bombs.
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