Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Al Qods Brigades commander
The Israeli naval commandos’ seizure of the Iranian missile ship KLOS C Wednesday, March 6, was the second time in ten days that the IDF had poked a finger in the eye of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of the al Qods Brigades, the intelligence-cum-terrorist arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The first instance was the Israeli air strike on Feb. 24 against Hizballah’s arms convoys and missiles on the Lebanese-Syrian border.
In reference to the ship carrying dozens of Syrian-made 302mm rockets from Iran to the Gaza Strip, Israeli military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi said Thursday, March 6, “We know who was behind this operation and who ran it from start to finish, the Revolutionary Guards and al Qods.”
Al Qods supreme commander is Gen. Soleimani. His agents and operatives are planted deeply across the Syrian war front and in Hizballah’s organization in Lebanon.
DEBKAfile reports: Israel does not buy the distinction drawn by Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini for international consumption between the two arms of the Islamic regime: President Hassan Rouhani’s government for the respectable handling of diplomacy and foreign relations, and the IRGC, which is purportedly barred from nuclear negotiations and confined to running the regime’s military, subversive and terrorist operations in areas of conflict, such as Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
