Two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters that contact with Qaani was lost.
The prominent Iranian leader headed to Lebanon, after the killing of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah Last month in an Israeli air strike on the southern suburb of Beirut.
Here are some facts about Qaani:
- The 67-year-old was born in Mashhad, a conservative Shiite religious city in northeastern Iran.
- He fought in the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard during the First Gulf War in the 1980s.
- Iran appointed him head of the Revolutionary Guard’s foreign military intelligence unit, after the United States assassinated his predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike on Baghdad in 2020.
- Part of a mission Qaani In that position he managed armed factions allied with Tehran across the Middle East, as well as in other regions around the world.
- People familiar with Qaani and Soleimani, and Western military and political analysts, said Qaani never received the same respect as his predecessor Soleimani, nor did he enjoy his close ties among Iran’s allies in the Arab world.
- While holding Soleimani He took charge of the Quds Force at a time when the strength of Iran’s allies in the Middle East increased, from Hezbollah in Lebanon through the armed factions in Iraq to the Houthi group in Yemen. Qaani assumed its leadership at a time when they were being targeted by Israeli spies and warplanes.
- Qaani became deputy commander Quds Forcethe external arm of the Revolutionary Guard, in 1997 when Soleimani became commander of the Corps.
- When Qaani took office, he pledged to expel American forces from the Middle East in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani.
- Qaani has experience in operations in other countries beyond Iran’s eastern borders, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- Qaani does not speak Arabic, unlike Soleimani, who spoke fluently with Iraqi armed factions and Hezbollah leaders.
- Qaani did not like to appear in public like Soleimani, and little information is available about him online Internet Or in leaked diplomatic cables.
- Unlike Soleimani, who had many pictures taken over the years on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, alongside the armed factions that Tehran armed and trained, Qaani preferred to remain hidden from view and conduct most of his meetings and visits to neighboring countries in secret.
