Iran says body recovered of general killed in Lebanon alongside Nasrallah

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says it has recovered the body of a senior Quds Force general killed in a massive air strike in Beirut last month alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan is understood to have flown from Tehran to Beirut for a meeting with Nasrallah on the same evening that both were killed in the Israeli strike on Hezbollah’s operations room in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital on 27 September.

In a statement late on Friday, reported by Iranian media, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said: “With hard work and efforts around the clock, the body of martyr Abbas Nilforoushan has been discovered.

“The time of transferring the body of martyr Nilforoushan to the Islamic homeland and the funeral and burial plans will be announced later.”

The IRGC’s statement comes with Iranian authorities facing continuing questions regarding the whereabouts of Esmail Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, who has not been seen in public since before the deaths of Nasrallah and Nilforoushan.

Qaani is understood to have been in Beirut at the time of another massive air strike on 4 October in which Nasrallah’s presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine, is widely believed to have been killed.

Amid rumours that Qaani had also been killed or injured, Middle East Eye reported on Thursday that he was alive but under guard and being questioned as part of an Iranian investigation into security breaches which enabled Israel to target Nasrallah.

MEE understands that the investigations surrounding Qaani and his team are focused on concerns of alleged negligence and mismanagement within his office which led to security breaches. None of MEE's sources suggested Qaani was involved.

Pressed about Qaani’s disappearance from public view on Wednesday, an IRGC advisor told the Iranian Tasnim news agency on Wednesday that he was “in perfect health” and would be awarded a medal by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “in the coming days”.

The commander of an armed faction told MEE there were serious suspicions in Iran that Israel had been able to infiltrate the IRGC.

“Nothing is certain at the moment. The investigations are still ongoing and all possibilities are open,” the commander said.

The Iranian investigation is also understood to have focused on security lapses surrounding Nilforoushan’s meeting with Nasrallah on the night they were killed.

Sources said he had flown to Beirut on the same evening and was taken directly from the plane to the fortified operations room beneath the neighbourhood of Haret Hreik.

'Nothing is certain at the moment. The investigations are still ongoing and all possibilities are open'

- Armed faction commander

He arrived before Nasrallah, and the air strike occurred shortly after Nasrallah arrived in the room.

Iran is currently on high alert after it attacked Israel with around 200 ballistic missiles on 1 October in response to the killing of Nasrallah, the escalating Israeli bombardment in Lebanon and Israel’s continuing war in Gaza.

Israel has vowed to respond, with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant saying earlier this week that its strike would be “lethal, precise and above all, surprising”.

Nilforoushan began overseeing operations in Syria and Lebanon after his predecessor, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was killed in an Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus in April.

Iranian media reports said that funeral ceremonies were planned for Nilforoushan in Isfahan, Mashhad and Tehran, where Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is expected to perform the funeral prayer.

Qaani, who is 67, was named head of the Quds Force in January 2020 after his predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad.