‘Epstein elite’ must await more ‘new surprises’: IRGC’s Quds commander

The commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps warned on Sunday that the United States and Israel should expect “new surprises” after several American aircraft were shot down over central Iran.

In a message posted on X, Brigadier General Esmail Qa’ani reminded the United States that its previous “rescue operations” inside Iran had ended in failure just as its most recent attempt to retrieve a downed airman resulted in the loss of two American military jets and two helicopters.

He drew parallels between the operation earlier in the day and the 1980 Operation Eagle Claw, also known as the Tabas disaster, in which a US mission to free American spies in Iran collapsed in the desert.

Iranian forces destroyed two US C-130 transport aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters, which had come to rescue the airman whose F-15 fighter jet had been shot down by Iranian forces on Friday.

“Smoke rising from the south of Isfahan and the charred Israeli vessel in the Med echo the 1980 Tabas fiasco and the 2006 Sa’ar naval disaster,” Qa'ani wrote.

By mentioning the “charred Israeli vessel” in the Mediterranean, the general was referring to a statement by Hezbollah, which said it had targeted an Israeli warship about 68 nautical miles off Lebanon’s coast.

General Qa’ani further warned that the “Epstein elite” should expect further “surprises” across the region.

“More dead-end and Desert One disasters, this time across the entire region,” he said.

The US and Israel started a fresh round of aerial aggression on Iran on February 28, some eight months after they carried out unprovoked attacks on the country.

Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the strikes by launching barrages of missile and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on US bases in regional countries.

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