On June 3, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), part of Iran's state media, reported that Colonel Ali Esmailzadeh, an officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force, died during an unspecified incident at his home in the Iranian city of Karaj. The IRNA denied that Esmailzadeh was assassinated. Esmailzadeh's death followed the assassination a month earlier of Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, another Qods Force officer whose death Iran blamed on Israel and the United States.