(Reuters) – Iran’s Quds Drive commander Esmail Qaani has not been heard from since Israeli strikes on Beirut late final week, two senior Iranian safety officers advised Reuters.
Qaani travelled to Lebanon after the killing final month of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike.
Listed below are some info about Qaani:
– Tehran named Qaani the pinnacle of the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ abroad military-intelligence service after the US assassinated his predecessor Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
– A part of Qaani’s job in that submit has been to handle Tehran’s paramilitary allies throughout the Center East, in addition to in different areas around the globe.
– In keeping with folks acquainted with each Qaani and Soleimani, in addition to Western army and political analysts, Qaani has by no means commanded the identical respect as his predecessor Soleimani or maintained the identical shut relationships amongst Iran’s allies within the Arab world.
– Whereas Soleimani held the reins of the Quds Drive throughout a time when Iran’s proxies – from Lebanese Hezbollah to Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim militias to the Houthis of Yemen – grew their energy within the Center East, Qaani has presided over their battering by the hands of Israeli spies and warplanes.
– Qaani grew to become deputy commander of the Quds Drive, the abroad arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in 1997 when Soleimani grew to become the Drive’s chief commander.
– When Qaani took over he vowed besides U.S. forces out of the Center East in revenge for Soleimani’s killing. “We promise to continue martyr Soleimani’s path with the same force … and the only compensation for us would be to remove America from the region,” state radio quoted Qaani as saying forward of Soleimani’s funeral in Tehran.
– Qaani, 67, was born in Mashhad, a conservative Shi’ite Muslim non secular metropolis in northeastern Iran. He fought for the Revolutionary Guards throughout the Iran-Iraq warfare within the Eighties.
– Qaani has additionally had expertise of abroad operations past Iran’s japanese borders, together with Afghanistan and Pakistan. He doesn’t communicate Arabic, not like Soleimani who spoke fluently with Iraqi militias and Hezbollah commanders.
– He has adopted much less of a public persona than Soleimani and little info is obtainable on him on-line or in leaked diplomatic cables.
– Not like Soleimani, who over time was broadly photographed on battlefields in Iraq and Syria alongside the militias Tehran has armed and skilled, Qaani has most popular to maintain a decrease profile and conduct most of his conferences and visits to neighbouring nations in personal.
