Middle East Eye: Iran arrests Qaani and investigates him over Israeli breaches of the Revolutionary Guards

The Middle East Eye website published a report prepared by Suad Salehi in which she said that the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Esmail Qaani, is alive and unharmed, but he is detained and under guard and is being investigated for the security breaches that led to the killing of the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut and the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.

Qaani has not appeared in public since Nasrallah was assassinated in a major airstrike on Beirut on September 27.

The website quoted ten sources in Tehran, Beirut and Baghdad, including prominent Shiite figures and sources close to Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as saying that Qaani and his team are being held while investigators search for answers.

The website indicated that Qaani arrived in Lebanon two days after Nasrallah's assassination, accompanied by a number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders and other figures "to assess the situation on the ground." However, after the attack on Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah's successor, communications with him were cut off.

There were many rumors in the media that he was injured or killed in the Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut. But a source in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and senior Iraqi officials told the website that the Quds Force commander was not injured and was not with Safi al-Din at the Shura Council meeting.

“The Iranians have serious suspicions that the Israelis have infiltrated the Revolutionary Guards, especially those operating in the Lebanese arena, so everyone is currently under investigation,” a commander of a pro-Iranian militia told Middle East Eye.

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders recently, and claimed to have killed Safieddine on October 4 in a massive airstrike while he was meeting with the Shura Council, though the party has not commented.

According to two Hezbollah sources and an Iraqi source, Nasrallah was outside Beirut's southern suburbs the night before his assassination, but returned to the area to meet with Iranian commander Abbas Nilforoushan and several Hezbollah leaders in the usual fortified operations room.

The Iranian investigation is focusing on Nilforoushan’s final movements. The two sources said he flew to Beirut that evening from Tehran and was taken directly from the plane to the operations room under the residential neighborhood of Haret Hreik. He arrived there before Nasrallah.

The general began supervising the Syrian and Lebanese arenas after his predecessor, General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was killed in an Israeli raid on the Iranian consulate in Damascus in April of this year.

Sources close to Hezbollah told the site that Qaani was expected to attend a Shura Council meeting at Safi al-Din’s invitation on the day of the airstrike, but Qaani apologized and refused to attend the meeting.

A source close to Hezbollah said: "Israel targeted the location of this meeting with a raid that was bigger and more intense than the raid that targeted Nasrallah, and Safi al-Din's head was what was wanted, and no one else."

On Tuesday, the deputy commander of the Quds Force, Iraj Masjedi, said that Qaani was in good health and continuing to carry out his duties, amid allegations that he was injured in an Israeli attack on Lebanon.

Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Ebrahim Jabbari, an adviser to the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, as saying that Qaani, who oversees the Guards' activities abroad, was fine and would soon receive a medal from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A source close to Hezbollah said: "The infiltration was 100 percent Iranian, there is no doubt about that part."

No one knows where Qaani is now, with eight sources saying he is in Tehran and two saying he is in Beirut. The Iranians are now trying to determine the extent and source of the breach. The commander of an Iranian-backed faction said Haniyeh’s assassination has heightened suspicions that Israel has penetrated the Revolutionary Guards.

He added that evidence suggests that the source came from the Revolutionary Guards, but no one is certain at this stage. "All that can be said is that the breach is major and the losses it caused are greater than anyone expected."