The commander of the elite Quds Force branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has appeared on state media following a two-week absence from public view that had raised questions about whether he was still alive.
Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani was shown in a live report by Iranian state broadcaster IRINN on Tuesday morning as the body of a senior IRGC figure killed in Lebanon arrived at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport.
Sitting alongside other officials, Qaani was seen attending a ceremony to receive the body of Abbas Nilforoushan before the slain commander’s funeral, expected to take place later Tuesday.
Nilforoushan was killed along with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut in September. Qaani’s absence from official events since the start of October had fueled speculation about whether the top general had met a similar fate.
Iranian officials and state media had repeatedly denied the rumors of Qaani’s death.
Qaani took charge of Iran’s vast paramilitary network across the Middle East in 2020 after replacing Qasem Soleimani following the killing of the former Quds Force chief in a US drone strike. He is sanctioned by the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western nations.
