Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, suffered a heart attack while being questioned as part of Tehran’s probe into intelligence leaks, Arab media reported on Thursday.
Sky News Arabia, citing Iranian sources, said that the commander had been moved to a hospital by the Islamic Republic’s security forces.
The investigation into Ghaani was opened following suspicions that the head of his office was in contact with Israeli intelligence “through an intermediary living outside Iran,” Sky News Arabia claimed.
Earlier on Thursday, Middle East Eye, a U.K.-based, Qatari-funded outlet, cited “ten sources in Tehran, Beirut and Baghdad” as saying that Ghaani and his associates were detained as Iran investigates major security breaches.
Iran has “serious suspicions” that Jerusalem has infiltrated the IRGC’s ranks, the commander of one Iranian-backed terrorist group told the website, adding that “everyone is currently under investigation.”
Ghaani, who took control of the elite Quds Force after his predecessor Qassem Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in 2020, was last seen in public visiting Hezbollah’s offices in Tehran on Sept. 29.
According to reports in Israeli and Arab media over the weekend, the Iranian may have been wounded or killed in an IDF airstrike in Beirut.
According to three Iranian officials cited by The New York Times, Ghaani traveled to the Lebanese capital to assist Hezbollah following a series of devastating Israeli attacks that have disrupted its chain of command, including a Sept. 27 airstrike that killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Ghaani was notably absent from an Oct. 4 prayer service in Tehran commemorating Nasrallah and led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
An IRGC member stationed in Beirut told the Times that the silence from Iranian officials is “creating panic among rank-and-file members.”
However, on Wednesday, an adviser to the Quds Force told Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency that Ghaani was “in perfect health and will receive the Fath medal from the Supreme Leader in the coming days.”
In addition, sources told the Saudi outlets Al-Hadath and Al Arabiya that Ghaani was in “isolation” following the recent assassinations of top Iranian officials. Tehran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Saturday that Ghaani is “in excellent health,” citing security sources.
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told CNN Türk late last month that Tehran created a unit to counter Mossad operations in Iran, only to discover, in 2021, that its head was a Mossad double-agent.
Beyond the unit head, some 20 other members of the unit were Mossad agents, Ahmadinejad said. He added that those agents were involved in stealing documents related to Iran’s nuclear weapons program in 2018.
“Israel organized complex operations inside Iran. They could easily obtain information. In Iran, they are still silent about this,” the former Iranian leader told the news channel. JNS
{Matzav.com}