2 Senior IRGC Officers Killed In 'Gas Leak' In Iran's Isfahan

An IRGC building in Isfahan Province (file photo)

Two senior officers with Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed in a gas leak in the central province of Isfahan, the IRGC's Sahib al-Zaman regional center announced in a statement on August 29.

Another 10 people were taken to the hospital with injuries after the incident at an IRGC workshop on the evening of August 28, the statement added, without specifying whether an explosion or gas inhalation caused the deaths and injuries.

The statement identified the two officers who were killed as Captain Mojtaba Nazari and Lieutenant Colonel Mukhtar Morshidi.

The statement did not say what activities were under way at the workshop affected by the incident and did not give its precise location nor the region of Isfahan Province where the incident occurred.

Iranian authorities usually give only skeletal details of such incidents.

The statement came amid heightened regional tensions following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 in Tehran.

Iran has accused Israel of killing Hanyieh, who was the political leader of the radical Islamist group Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

Israel, which has been engaged in a war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip since Hamas fighters stormed across the border into southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 people hostage, has not admitted officially that it was behind Hanyieh's death.

On April 19, Israel launched a limited air strike on a defense facility near the city of Isfahan, prompting Iranian air defenses to open fire.

The Israeli strike reportedly targeted an air-defense radar system at the defense facility, and satellite imagery suggested that an Iranian surface-to-air missile battery was struck.

The Israeli strike came in apparent response to an Iranian drone and missile strike in Israel, which was prompted by a strike by the Jewish state on the Iranian Consulate in Syria's capital, Damascus.