Iranian General Is Seen in State Media After Questions Over His Whereabouts

15 Oct 2024, 08:52 by https://www.nytimes.com/by/qasim-nauman · NY Times

Iranian General Is Seen in State Media After Questions Over His Whereabouts

Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, commander of the elite Quds Force, appeared in video footage on Tuesday as Tehran braces for a possible counterstrike by Israel.

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Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, at a funeral in Tehran on Tuesday for a senior Iranian Quds commander who was killed in a strike in Lebanon that targeted Hezbollah’s leader.
Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

By Qasim Nauman

After days of speculation about his whereabouts, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, appeared in video footage broadcast by Iranian state news media and in photographs from independent news outlets on Tuesday.

The last time Iranian news media published photographs of General Ghaani was two days after Israel killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, on Sept. 27 in Lebanon, according to photos published by Iranian news media. But within a week, there were reports in some Israeli and Arab media that he had been either killed or injured in one of Israel’s attacks on Beirut.

The Quds Force is the branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that conducts external operations, including the oversight of the militant groups that Iran supports, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen and militia groups in Iraq and Syria.

General Ghaani, 67, became the head of the Quds Force after the United States killed its previous commander, Gen. Qassem Suleimani, in Iraq in 2020. The questions about his whereabouts emerged as Iran braced for a potential counterstrike after it fired a barrage of missiles at Israel two weeks ago.

The commander of Iran’s Quds Force was shown at a ceremony at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport in a video broadcast by Iranian state news media on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, according to the Iranian state news agency IRNA, General Ghaani was at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, attending an early-morning ceremony to receive the body of Maj. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior Iranian Quds commander in charge of Lebanon and Syria who was killed in the Sept. 27 strike on Mr. Nasrallah.

Later on Tuesday morning, General Ghaani attended a public funeral for General Nilforoushan in Tehran, according to more video footage broadcast by Iranian state media. Photographers for independent, international news outlets, including The New York Times, also showed General Ghaani at the event.

Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

Our Coverage of the Middle East Crisis

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Hamas Sought Iranian Support: Minutes of Hamas’s secret meetings, seized by the Israeli military and obtained by The New York Times, showed that the militant group tried to persuade Iran to join its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Hezbollah Drone Strike: A drone attack by Hezbollah on a military base in the north of Israel killed four soldiers and wounded dozens, showing that the militant group remains a force.
Destruction in Lebanon: Satellite images and videos showed the devastation in southern Lebanon a week after Israeli ground troops moved in to confront Hezbollah militants.