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 Gen. Abbas Nilforushan marks the latest casualty suffered by Iran as the nearly yearlong Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Stripteeters on the edge of becoming a regional conflict. His death further ratchets up pressure on Iran to respond, even as Tehran has signaled in recent months that it wants to negotiate with the West over sanctions crushing its economy.

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

  • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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    6 hours ago

    Its about gradual escalation.

    israel has made it clear they are now going against the terrorist leaders and backers (rather than just the foot soldiers and their families…). They have also made it abundantly clear that they don’t care who is around those terrorists. That is horrible (blowing up pagers in a grocery store) and “effective” (murdering anyone who meets with them).

    If iran continues to play proxy war games? Then those strikes will move into iranian territory in the same way they strikes moved into lebanese territory.