The commander of the foreign operations branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has issued a rare message hailing Iranian proxy groups for helping create a “new regional order”, AFP reports.

Esmail Qaani became head of the Guards’ Quds Force after the killing of Qassem Soleimani in a US strike in Iraq in 2020.

His message, just the second attributed to him since the US-Israeli war against Iran began on February 28, was posted on X under the handle ‘general_Qaani’, although the social media giant then rapidly suspended the account with a note that “X suspends accounts which violate the X Rules”.

The message was also widely published by Iranian news agencies and state television.

Qaani said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to create a “security belt across the region”, but the actions of groups including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen had “exposed the regime’s false promises”.

“Get used to the new regional order,” he said.