Iran’s General Esmail Qaani, who leads the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terror organization, was reportedly not killed by Israel but is being held by Iranian officials on suspicion of spying.
Qaani, who replaced General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in January 2020 by an airstrike in Iraq ordered by then-President Donald Trump, was widely thought to have been killed in one of Israel’s aistrikes on Hezbollah leaders in Beirut, Lebanon.
But as Breitbart News reported, Iranian officials insisted that Qaani was still alive, though he remained silent.
Rumors emerged in Arabic media that Qaani had, in fact, been arrested by Iran, because every major Hezbollah leader with whom he had met in recent days had gone on to be killed by Israel shortly thereafter.
Middle East Eye reported Thursday:
Esmail Qaani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, is alive and unhurt but under guard and being questioned as Iran investigates major security breaches, multiple sources have told Middle East Eye.
…
Since then, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has opened investigations into how Israel was able penetrate the Lebanese movement’s most senior leadership and identify where and when Nasrallah would be found.
Ten sources in Tehran, Beirut and Baghdad, including senior Shia figures and sources close to Hezbollah and in the IRGC, told MEE that even Qaani, one of Iran’s most senior generals, and his team are under lockdown as investigators seek answers.
Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed earlier this month that Israeli intelligence had penetrated Iran so deeply that a counter-intelligence unit had been unwittingly staffed entirely by Israeli agents.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
