The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of the Iranian regime has confirmed the death of Abbas Nilforoushan, the Deputy for Operations of this military force.
Abbas Nilforoushan was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Dahiya area of southern Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, on the afternoon of Friday, September 27.
This is the same attack that resulted in the death of Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, and several other commanders of the group, which is supported by the Iranian regime and designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.
Who is Abbas Nilforoushan?
Abbas Nilforoushan was born in 1966 in Isfahan. In 1980, he first joined the Basij militia and later became a member of the IRGC.
Nilforoushan participated in the Iran-Iraq war.
In 2005, he was appointed as the IRGC’s Deputy for Operations and held this position until 2007.
In 2010, Abbas Nilforoushan became the head of the IRGC’s Command and Staff College, a position he held until 2014.
He also served as the deputy commander of the Imam Hossein Headquarters and as the deputy for operations in the IRGC during his career.
Successor to Mohammad Reza Zahedi
In 2019, Abbas Nilforoushan was appointed as the Deputy for Operations of the entire IRGC. He succeeded Mohammad Reza Zahedi in this position by order of Hossein Salami, the IRGC’s Commander-in-Chief. Zahedi was a senior commander of the Quds Force, the IRGC’s external operations unit, who was killed on April 1, 2024, in an airstrike attributed to Israel on the Iranian regime’s consulate in Damascus, Syria.
U.S. Sanctions
The U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Abbas Nilforoushan in 2022 for his direct role in suppressing the nationwide protests in Iran that year and prior.
In 2020, Iranian state television introduced Nilforoushan as a “comrade of Qassem Soleimani,”
the former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, who was killed on January 8, 2020, in a U.S. drone strike on his vehicle near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.
In an interview with state television, Nilforoushan stated that Israel does not have the capability to pose a threat to Iran.
Support for Iran’s Proxy Groups
Iranian regime-affiliated media have reported on Abbas Nilforoushan’s role in assisting the regime’s proxy groups, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon.
According to reports, he played an active role in military and diplomatic planning for the regime’s proxy groups, including playing a key role in coordinating among them.
