Terrorism
IRGC Quds Force chief under increasing pressure as proxy network reels
IRGC Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani's competence has come into question as the regional network he controls suffers crippling setbacks.
![IRGC Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani appeared in Tehran on October 15 after weeks of absence. [AFP]](/gc3/images/2025/03/04/49373-quds-force-qaani-370_237.webp)
By Pishtaz |
As a series of setbacks cripples the so-called "axis of resistance," the leadership of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) commander Esmail Qaani has come under fire.
It is on Qaani's watch that Hassan Nasrallah -- the powerful commander of Lebanese Hizbullah, the Iranian regime's main proxy -- was killed September 27.
Nasrallah's named successor, Hashem Safieddine, was killed as well, after numerous other top-tier party leaders lost their lives in the "pager attacks" that targeted their pagers and two-way radios (walkie-talkies).
These attacks showed Hizbullah had been fully penetrated, leaving it exposed and weakened, with a visibly shaken Naim Qassem forced to take the helm.
The fall of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad the following month further weakened the IRGC-QF, which lost a safe base of operations for its Syria proxies.
Some blamed al-Assad's fall on Qaani and the IRGC, Iran International reported in January.
Since the fall of the Syrian regime, there have been rumblings inside the IRGC, Khabar online reported.
Some are saying, "What kind of Quds Force is this, and Qaani is incapable," Ali Shirazi, a former representative of Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, told Khabar.
Weak or complicit?
Questions also have emerged about Qaani's role in Hamas's October 7 attack.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar negotiated with the Iranian regime for $500 million in funding as early as 2021, with Tehran already providing $10 million for Hamas's armed wing, the Wall Street Journal reported.
By 2016, Hamas had expanded its fighting force to 27,000, adding 6,000 fighters in just two years, while acquiring sophisticated weapons, GPS jammers and drones, an intelligence memo reviewed by the New York Times showed.
The same memo projected Hamas aimed to expand to 40,000 fighters by 2020.
While Tehran's United Nations mission claims Hamas acted independently, evidence suggests either IRGC-QF complicity in the October 7 attack or loss of control over its proxy force, regional experts told Pishtaz.
In any event, by late 2024, Qaani's control over the IRGC-QF's proxy network showed signs of collapse, and by early 2025, he was facing significant challenges, with voices within the establishment demanding a leadership change.
As the Iranian regime grapples with the most serious challenges to its regional influence in decades, the fate of the IRGC-QF commander now hangs in the balance.
Victory is definitely with Hezbollah and the soldiers of God. This is God's promise to the original owners of the land.
General Qaani is a dear and brave man, and we will be victorious - God Willing.
What goes up will eventually come down. This corrupt and cowardly regime has taken away the rights of the Iranian people by electing the undeserving Esmail Qaani. None of the regime’s usurping generals are of a higher stance than Qaani. It just needs the people to unite and fill all the streets for a few days. That will make Iran free from the regime, and the people will be freed from poverty and misery. I want to be the first martyr of this revolution.
The regime has long been building the security foundations of the dirty government of the Islamic Republic on fear, division, deliberate and controlled internal chaos, and the maximum plundering and usurping of the country's natural and financial resources, and their use in order to create international and regional tensions against the free world, for the benefit and exploitation of Russia and China, and to create a fictitious role for them to participate in the arrangement of regional and global powers. It is clearly evident that the worst kind of deliberate incompetence and ineptitude in running the country's affairs is at the top of the agenda of this traitorous and war-seeking regime. Now that, thanks to the wave of public awakening and anger, it has reached a military, economic, and political impasse due to this treacherous practice, it has become extremely desperate and nervous, and in a way, it has reached its most dangerous state since its formation. This means that if this regime succeeds in acquiring weapons of mass destruction, no matter how primitive and low-quality, it will not hesitate for a moment in threatening the world to maintain itself in this way. Also, considering the so-called Shiite jurisprudential guidelines in the style of the Khamenei gang, which are used to kill a large number of innocent people with the justification that "we kill, and if they are sinners, we have earned a reward and played a win-win game, and in the end we are in heaven and the s
Iranians were monotheists before Islam. They are still monotheists. So a true Iranian whose blood is pure understands and does not say anything against his own country based on ill intentions ... We will be victorious, and this is God's promise...
International is a Zionist and mercenary Wahhabi network, and it has been proven that this dirty network is the enemy of the unified land of Iran and was launched to propagate and weaken the integrity of Iran. Soon this network will be consigned to the dustbin of history due to the vigilance of the Iranian people, it will lose its audience and become ineffective, and its budget will be cut. How do you feel about that you feeble evil mercenaries.