Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Deputy Commander overseeing Quds Force Operations in middle east killed along with Hezbollah chief in Israeli airstrike in Lebanon

Abbas Nilforushan (58), Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ deputy commander, was killed along with Hezbollah leaders in the Israeli operation. He was the Acting Commander of Quds Force Operations in Syria and Lebanon.

After Lebanon-based group Hezbollah confirmed that its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Iranian media reported that a prominent general in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was also killed in the same airstrike. Notably, Nasrallah and several other top Hezbollah leaders were killed when Israeli forces bombed the group’s underground headquarters under residential buildings in Beirut on Friday.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that Abbas Nilforushan (58), Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ deputy commander, was killed along with Hezbollah leaders in the Israeli operation. “Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan was martyred in Israel’s attack on Beirut along with Martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” IRNA tweeted.

As per reports, Nilforoushan was overseeing the IRGC’s Operations Command, which is directly involved in various military and security operations. He was responsible various tasks like suppression of protests in Iran and military engagements abroad, particularly in Syria. He was the Acting Commander of Quds Force Operations in Syria and Lebanon.

Confirming the death, the Head of the Judicial Organization of the Armed Forces of Iran said, “We consider the pursuit of justice for this martyr to be the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran under international legal conventions.”

Abbas Nilforushan played a key role in arming various Islamist groups in the middle-east and maintaining coordination among them. He was sanctioned by the USA in 2022, saying that he led a group “directly in charge of protest suppression, which has played a critical role in arresting protest leaders during previous protests.”

In the operation titled “New Order,” Israeli Defence Forces used dozens of bunker buster bombs to hit the underground bunkers of Hezbollah in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh on Friday. The group’s headquarters are located beneath residential buildings, and Israel knew that Hezbollah top leadership had assembled there.

IDF said that the airstrike was based on years of tracking Nasrallah along with “real time information”, in which the underground bunkers were hit with bunker-busting bombs fired from F-15 fighter planes. Six buildings were levelled in the attack, and Lebanese Health Ministry said that six people were killed and 91 injured in the strikes.

As per Israel, apart from Hezbollah chief Nasrallah, Ali Karki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front, and other top commanders were also killed. In a second round of strikes Israeli forces destroyed missiles stockpiled in Hezbollah in buildings in the area.