Iran says it recovered body of general killed alongside Nasrallah

Return of Abbas Nilforoushan's body to Iran and funeral and burial plans will be announced later

A billboard commemorating Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Abbas Nilforoushan stands along a street in Tehran. EPA

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Iran said it had recovered the body of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general killed alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli attack on Beirut last month.

“With hard work and efforts around the clock, the body of martyr Abbas Nilforoushan has been discovered,” the IRGC said on Friday.

“The time of transferring the body of martyr Nilforoushan to the Islamic homeland and the funeral and burial plans will be announced later,” the IRGC said.

Brig Gen Nilforoushan, a senior commander of the Quds Force, the IRGC's foreign operations arm, was killed on September 27 when Israel bombed Hezbollah's underground headquarters in a southern suburb of Beirut.

On October 1, the IRGC fired some 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killing of the general, as well as Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, who was assassinated in Tehran in late July.

Israel had said that the attack caused damage to several airbases but did not affect military operations.

Following the attack, Israel pledged “powerful strikes” across the region in revenge, while Tehran threatened retaliation if Israel responded. This was followed by Iran’s proxies in Iraq saying they would assault US bases there.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed this week that his country's response would be “deadly, precise and surprising”.