(L to R): Iran’s Supreme Leader; Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel on September 27, 2024, and Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Quds Force commander, killed by the US in January 2020


EA on WION: What Now For Hezbollah After Israel’s Killing of Hassan Nasrallah?

EA on Australia’s ABC and Pat Kenny Show: Israel’s Airstrikes on Hezbollah and Lebanon


Reeling from Israel’s assassinations of Hezbollah’s command — including its long-time Hassan Nasrallah — and Iranian generals, Iran’s Supreme Leader has insisted that the “Resistance Front” will deliver “even more crushing blows” upon the Israelis.

Speaking hours after the confirmation that both Hezbollah leaders and Lebanese civilians were slain in Friday night’s bombing of a block in southern Beirut, Ayatollah Khamenei paid tribute to Nasrallah and his “martyrdom”.

“The dear Sayyid of the Resistance has received his reward for decades of jihad on the path of God and enduring hardships in a sacred struggle,” Khamenei posted. “The Islamic world has lost a noble figure, the Resistance Front has lost an eminent standard-bearer, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah has lost an unparalleled leader.”

The Supreme Leader insisted that Hezbollah and the Iran regime’s allies would be “strengthened due to his sacrifice and that of the other martyrs”. Then he proclaimed:

The Supreme Leader closed with the declaration of five days of national mourning.

While Khamenei has regularly pledged retaliation for Israel’s attacks, Iran’s regime has been unwilling or unable to do so.

In April, after a series of assassinations of its commanders and officials in Syria, Iran finally fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel. However, Tehran notified the Israelis via other countries in advance. No drones and only nine missiles landed on an Israeli base in the sparsely-populated Negev desert; the sole casualty was a seriously-wounded Bedouin girl.

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On July 31, Israel assassinated Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in an apartment in Tehran. Despite the embarrassment over the security lapse and Khamenei’s declarations of revenge, the regime had yet to respond before Friday’s strike in Beirut.

See also Israel’s Deadly — But Inconclusive — Message With Killing of Hamas Leader Haniyeh

Iranian Brigadier General Killed

The commander of Iran’s Quds Force in Lebanon, Brig. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan was among the slain in the destruction of Hezbollah’s underground headquarters in the Beirut block.

Nilforoushan was a Revolutionary Guards Deputy Commander, overseeing the Operations Command since 2019. The Command’s remit included Iranian interventions in Lebanon and propping up Syria’s Assad regime as it repressed protests and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and displaced more than 11 million since March 2011.

He was sanctioned by the US in October 2022 for his role in “protest suppression”.

The general, 58, began his career at the age of 14 as a volunteer in the Basij paramilitary force. He fought in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, rising to deputy operation commander of an Iranian division.