The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, Ismail Qaani, who has not been seen in public since early last week and whose mysterious disappearance sparked a wave of rumors, is being investigated on suspicion of ties to Israel.
This was reported by Sky News in Arabic, citing Iranian sources, who said: "He was interrogated about the intelligence infiltration and suffered a heart attack. He was taken to the hospital during his interrogations. The head of Qaani's office is suspected of having ties to Israel."
Earlier this week, two senior Iranian security officials told the news agency that Qaani had disappeared after a powerful attack in Beirut's Dahiya district last Thursday, which targeted senior Hezbollah leader Hashem Safi al-Din — Hassan Nasrallah's cousin and the successor to the terror group's secretary-general — who was assassinated less than a week earlier.
Contact with Safi a-Din has also been severed since that attack, and although the IDF has not yet confirmed that he was killed, it is believed by foreign reports that he was indeed killed. One of the sources who spoke to Reuters said Qaani was in Dahiya during the attack two weeks ago and that nothing had been heard from him since.
However, the source claimed that Qaani did not attend the meeting with Safi al-Din. The second source also said that Qaani had gone to Beirut following Nasrallah's assassination.
He was last seen in public on Sunday last week, when he visited Hezbollah's offices in Tehran, where he was photographed alongside Hashem's brother Safi al-Din, Abdullah.
A senior Hezbollah official interviewed by an Iraqi media channel on Sunday was asked about Qaani's disappearance, and replied: "I have no information, we are also looking for the truth on this issue."
Iran International, an opposition channel to the ayatollahs' regime that broadcasts in Persian from London, reported on Sunday that Qaani's family confirmed they had no details about his condition or whereabouts and were worried about his fate.
