An Iranian general reportedly died in an Israeli strike that killed Hezbollah’s leader

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A prominent general in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard died in an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Iranian media reported Saturday.

The killing of General Abbas Nilforushan is the latest casualty suffered by Iran as the nearly year-long war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is on the verge of becoming a regional conflict. His death further increases pressure on Iran to respond, even as Tehran has signaled in recent months that it wants to negotiate with the West over sanctions that are destroying its economy.

Nilforushan, 58, was killed in the attack in Lebanon on Friday that killed Nasrallah, the state-run Tehran Times newspaper reported. Ahmad Reza Pour Khaghan, the deputy head of Iran’s judiciary, also confirmed Nilforushan’s death and described him as a “guest of the Lebanese people,” state news agency IRNA said.

Khaghan also reportedly said that Iran has the right to retaliate under international law.

Nilforushan served as the Guard’s deputy commander of operations and oversaw its ground forces. It was not immediately clear what he was doing in Lebanon on Friday. The Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force has armed, trained and relied on Hezbollah for decades as part of its strategy to rely on regional militias as a counterweight to Israel and the United States.

Nilforushan, like other Guard members who view Israel as Iran’s main enemy, has long mocked and criticized the country.

“The Zionist regime has many ethnic, cultural, social and military divisions. It is more vulnerable and doomed than ever before,” Nilforushan said, according to an IRNA report in 2022.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Nilforushan in 2022, saying he led an organization “directly responsible for protest suppression.” These sanctions came as part of the months-long protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her headscarf, or hijab, in keeping with police demands. At the time, Nilforushan accused Iran’s enemies abroad of fomenting demonstrations led by Iranian women that questioned both the hijab requirement and the country’s theocracy.

Nilforushan also served in Syria, supporting President Bashar Assad in his country’s decades-long war that emerged from the 2011 Arab Spring. Like many of his colleagues, he began his military career in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

In 2020, Iranian state television called him a “comrade” of General Qassem Soleimani, the Quds Force chief who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad this year.

Nilforushan’s death comes as Iran has signaled in recent months that it wants to change course toward the West after years of tensions stemming from the U.S.’s unilateral withdrawal from Tehran’s nuclear deal with the world powers by then-President Donald Trump in 2018.

In July, Iranian voters elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian after a helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi, a stubborn protégé of 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Although he is critical of Israel, Pezeshkian has maintained that Iran is willing to negotiate over its nuclear program, which is now enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels. Although Iran has been able to sell oil abroad despite the sanctions, it has likely been at a significant discount and energy prices have continued to fall in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Iran is still threatening retaliation for the killing of Soleimani and the alleged Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. Iran has not yet explained why it has not struck, although an unprecedented direct attack it launched against Israel in April did not cause serious damage to any major target.

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.