The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, Gen. Esmail Qaani, has appeared in television footage aired Tuesday by Iranian state television.
Rumors circulated for weeks over Qaani’s status in the time since an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut’s southern suburbs in late September. But Qaani was seen in a black bomber jacket, wiping away tears at an event early Tuesday morning at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport.
While Iranian state television did not acknowledge the rumors, it made a point to film Qaani for over a minute and later share the footage from the airport ceremony online.
Qaani was on hand for the repatriation to Iran of the body of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, 58, who was killed in the Beirut airstrike.
Nilforushan’s body was flown by private plane from Beirut to Iraq for his funeral. Then the body was transferred to Iran for burial.
The funeral drew the largest crowd of top leaders in the IRGC together Tuesday for the first time since Tehran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel.
