Launching new Persian-language social media accounts, the Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday identified an Iranian general as the mastermind behind a thwarted drone attack against Israel from Syria.
The army said Javad Ghafari, a brigadier general in the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, oversees Iranian forces in Syria and is in charge of Tehran’s efforts to establish a military presence in the country.
The army said Ghafari was in charge of a cell in Syria that planned to fly explosives-laden drones at Israeli territory, which the IDF thwarted over the weekend.
The statement was the first released by the IDF’s new Persian-language social media channels. The military said its newly launched Instagram, Twitter and Telegram channels were “official information platforms designed for an Iranian audience.”
Alongside the Persian-language statement statement, the IDF published an organizational chart that showed the links between Quds Force head Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Ghafari and the two Hezbollah fighters that were killed in the Israeli strike on Saturday night.
At least five people were killed in the raid, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel identified two of those killed as Lebanese nationals Hassan Yousef Zabeeb, 23, from the town of Nabatieh, and Yasser Ahmad Daher, 22, of Blida, both of whom were Hezbollah members.
The military on Monday distributed photographs of the two men traveling together on Iran’s Mahan airline, which Israel and the United States have identified as a major transporter of weaponry and materiel to Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies in Syria and Lebanon. It said Zabeeb and Daher were working under the direct command of Soleimani.
The IDF chief of staff had previously blamed Soleimani for the plot.