Hezbollah leader says conflict with Israel in 'new phase' after killings

[Gunny]

Hezbollah leader says conflict with Israel in 'new phase' after killings (bbc.com) (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn05v009n2ko)

[fj1200]

I have to wonder if Iran helped the outcome along somehow.

[Kathianne]

I have to wonder if Iran helped the outcome along somehow.

Elaborate, please?

[fj1200]

Just a thought. I heard on the radio how Israel was, allegedly, able to do it. By planting a bomb in the room months ahead of time. That speaks to great intel, great luck, or... a little help. If number 2 Hamas is becoming a liability then it becomes acceptable to help the assassination process along. I've also got to imagine that there are some pro, err, not ant-Israel folks higher up in Iran.

[Kathianne]

Just a thought. I heard on the radio how Israel was, allegedly, able to do it. By planting a bomb in the room months ahead of time. That speaks to great intel, great luck, or... a little help. If number 2 Hamas is becoming a liability then it becomes acceptable to help the assassination process along. I've also got to imagine that there are some pro, err, not ant-Israel folks higher up in Iran.

Thanks for that. Your post made me remember something I read long ago, here is something on the same topic:

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202408016917


Hamas leader’s killing sparks warnings of Israeli ‘infiltration’11 hours ago


Maryam Sinaiee
British Iranian journalist and political analyst


The shocking killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the heart of the Iranian capital has sparked speculations and warnings about serious flaws and “Israeli infiltration” in Iran's intelligence and security agencies.


Critics say these flaws allowed an intricate intelligence network of infiltrators in the highest levels of Iranian security agencies to provide vital information to Israel to make a complex operation of this scale possible.


Israel has not taken responsibility for Haniyeh’s assassination but Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who holds Israel responsible for the killing has vowed to avenge it.


The conservative Jomhouri Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper on Thursday criticized the authorities for not heeding the many warnings about Israeli infiltration after other Israeli assassinations such as the killing of Iran's top nuclear man and Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) member Mohsen Fakhrizadehnear in Tehran in November 2020.


“The fact that the Zionist regime can lead its rocket through the window of Ismail Haniyeh’s bedroom in a highly guarded area of Tehran and martyr him only means that this criminal regime has infiltrators among us,” Jomhouri Eslami wrote.


“More important than taking revenge is blocking the enemy's paths of penetration through the air and on the ground and identifying and punishing their agents,” the newspaper said.


Jomhouri Eslami also reminded the authorities of the historical case of Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy who infiltrated the highest ranks of the Syrian military and government in the 1960s and called for a “fundamental clean up in intelligence and security agencies”.


Mansour Haqiqatpour, a former spokesman of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee also criticized the security and intelligence agencies in an interview with Rouydad 24 news website on Wednesday.


“Decisions must be made about some of our political, military, and security authorities some of whom must be sacked because of this incident,” Haqiqatpour, an IRGC general who served as Qasem Soleimani regional deputy in the Qods Force for over a decade, told Rouydad 24.


Jalal Sadatian, Iran’s former ambassador to the United Kingdom, also warned about the possibility of infiltration. “We have been bitten by [snakes crawling out of this] hole many times as in the assassination of nuclear scientists and other figures," he told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) Wednesday.


Israel has been blamed for the assassination of at least five Iranian nuclear scientists in and around Tehran since 2010 as well as several sabotage attacks on the country’s nuclear facilities.


In an interview with Israel's Channel 12 TV in June 2021, former Mossad chief Yosef ‘Yossi’ Cohen suggested that Israel was behind both the Fakhrizadeh killing and the April 11 2021 attack on the Natanz enrichment plant.


“The most smashing response to Israel [for Haniyeh’s assassination] is identification and neutralization of the agents that have infiltrated the system to the bone,” prominent reformist politician Mohsen Mirdamadi who also suggestively used the hashtag “Eli Cohen” tweeted Thursday. “Infiltrators are those whose Death to Israel cries reach as far as Tel Aviv,” he added.


In 2021, in an interview with reformist Jamaran news website, former intelligence minister Ali Younesi said all Iranian officials are at risk of being killed by Mossad. Younesi who served under reformist President Mohammad Khatami from December 2000 to August 2005 pointed out that rivalries between the Intelligence Ministry, the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and other security agencies had weakened them.


"Parallel organizations are busy fighting insiders rather than monitoring and confronting infiltrators," Younesi argued.


A video of the interview has been widely circulating on Persian-language social media and news websites since the announcement of Haniyeh’s assassination.


Videos of past interviews with Iran's former populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2021 have also been widely circulating on social media in which he warned about a “corrupt gang at the high level” of Iran's intelligence agencies.


Ahmadinejad claimed in one of the interviews that a top official of the intelligence ministry during his second term of presidency who was responsible for the Israel Desk, was executed for spying for Israel.


“Whoever claims that Israeli infiltration is limited to that one person in the intelligence ministry wants to conceal the existence of Israel’s infiltration network in Iran,” Ahmadinejad said.

[Kathianne]

One more:

https://medyanews.net/assassination-of-ismail-haniyeh-underscores-influence-of-israeli-intelligence-within-iran/


Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh underscores influence of Israeli intelligence within IranThe assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas' political office, in the highly secure Sa’ad Abad Palace complex in northern Tehran on 31 July has heightened concerns about Israeli intelligence infiltration into Iran's military-security apparatus. Experts assert that this incident epitomises Mossad's extensive operations in Iran.
10:05 am 02/08/2024
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Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh underscores influence of Israeli intelligence within Iran
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The killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political office, in the highly secure Sa’ad Abad Palace complex in northern Tehran during the early hours of Wednesday 31 July, has reignited concerns about the penetration of Iran’s military-security apparatus by Israeli intelligence agencies.


Experts assert that his assassination in the building reportedly belonging to the Revolutionary Guards epitomises Mossad’s extensive operations, from assassinations to document theft and sabotage of Iran’s nuclear facilities.


The newspaper Jomhouri-e-Islami highlighted the presence of Israeli infiltrators in Iran, stating that the assassination of Haniyeh in his own bedroom indicates that Israel has “infiltrators within our ranks”.


This likely accounts for Ayatollah Khamenei’s visibly uneasy demeanour during Haniyeh’s funeral at Tehran University on 1 August, where his constant glances at the ceiling and surroundings surprised many.


Three years ago, Ali Younesi, former Minister of the Iranian Intelligence Service during the reform period and advisor of former President Rouhani, issued a stark warning in a controversial interview. He warned Iranian officials of Mossad’s deep infiltration, stressing that its reach in Iran’s security and political sectors posed a lethal threat, exacerbated by rivalries among Iran’s intelligence agencies.


Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president of Iran, had revealed shortly before Younesi’s speech that the individual tasked with countering Israel in the Ministry of Defense was, in fact, an Israeli spy.


Over the past decade, until 31 July, numerous assassinations and acts of vandalism have occurred in Iran’s security and missile centres in Tehran, a city heavily monitored by security cameras. Notable incidents include the theft of nuclear documents in Torquzabad on 31 January 2018, and the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of the Research and Innovation Organisation of the Ministry of Defense, on 27 November 2020.


In the Torquzabad operation, Mossad managed to steal 55,000 pages of important nuclear documents and digital files on 183 CDs by breaking into 32 safes, 20 kilometres southwest of Tehran. General Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, remarked that “Iran has encountered a widespread security problem, exemplified by three security incidents in less than a year: two explosions and an assassination.”


The 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a pivotal figure in Iran’s nuclear weapons program, was executed with the assistance of an Iranian armed forces member, according to then-Minister of Information Mahmoud Alavi.


Following the assassination of Fakhrizadeh, Israel continued its direct attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, including a key Defense Ministry complex in Isfahan, in February 2023.


Given the background of Israeli intelligence infiltration in Iran, Abdolreza Davari, a former advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, noted on X:


“An Israeli account provided detailed information about the ‘Imam Ali Camp in Sa’ad Abad region’ three years ago.” According to this Iranian security official, Haniyeh’s assassination team had precise knowledge of his route and residence. Media News reported Haniyeh’s location and murder before the Iranian government announced it.

[Kathianne]

fj1200



I have to wonder if Iran helped the outcome along somehow.


Just turned on FOX and they are in segment: Israel At War

They are discussing a Kirby comment regarding just this: Israeli infiltration of Iranian leadership.

Came down regarding Kirby: 'He can't say whether or not it's true Israel has infiltrated.' OR 'He can't say.'

I know what I'd guess.

[fj1200]

Your post made me remember something I read long ago...

I would call the day a success. ;) Time for a nap. :)

[Kathianne]

We're not alone noticing:

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/08/03/boom-contd-mole-hunt-raging-in-tehran-n3792644


Boom, Cont'd: Mole Hunt Raging in TehranEd Morrissey 2:30 PM | August 03, 2024



AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File
Call it the gift that keeps on giving.


Israel stunned the world and humiliated the Iranians in killing Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh this week while a guest in Tehran for the presidential inauguration. The explanation of how they carried out the precision bombing rattled the Iranians even more. The Mossad penetrated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's most trusted protective service, hiring more than one of their agents to plant that bomb as well as others in a compound considered the most secure in Tehran:


The Telegraph [link here, paywalled -- Ed] cited two Iranian officials as saying that the initial plan was to assassinate Haniyeh when he was in Tehran in May for the funeral of the late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash. That operation was reportedly called off due to the large number of people in the building and the seemingly high possibility of failure.


Instead, according to the British daily, the agents went ahead and planted explosives in three different rooms at the compound, and later left Iran. The sources quoted in the report said surveillance footage shows them moving discretely from room to room. They reportedly detonated the bombs from abroad.


“They are now certain that Mossad hired agents from the Ansar al-Mahdi security unit,” an official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told the newspaper, referring to a unit tasked with protecting senior officials.


Another IRGC official was quoted as saying: “It is a humiliation for Iran and a huge security breach.” The IRGC runs the guesthouse in an upscale neighborhood of Tehran where Haniyeh and other dignitaries were staying.


Apparently, July was a bad month for protective services globally. Just sayin'.


Anyway, the humiliation has produced one predictable result already. And for Israel, it couldn't come at a better time, and perhaps also for the long-restive population under the thumb of the IRGC and the mullahs:


Iran has arrested more than two dozen people, including senior intelligence officers, military officials and staff workers at a military-run guesthouse in Tehran, in response to a huge and humiliating security breach that enabled the assassination of a top leader of Hamas, according to two Iranians familiar with the investigation.


The high-level arrests came after the killing in an explosion early Wednesday of Ismail Haniyeh, who had led Hamas’s political office in Qatar and was visiting Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president and staying at the guesthouse in northern Tehran, Iran’s capital. ...


The Revolutionary Guards Corps’ specialized intelligence unit for espionage has taken over the investigation and is hunting down suspects that it hopes will lead it to members of the assassin team that planned, aided and carried out the killing, according to the two Iranian officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigations.


The news of the sweeping arrests came after the Revolutionary Guards announced in a statement that “the scope and details of this incident are under investigation and will be announced in due course.”


Is this a mole hunt? Or is it the start of a purge? It could be both, and neither will make the IRGC or the regime more effective in the short term. Mole hunts distract even the best intelligence and security agencies, soaking up valuable resources that would normally focus outward to look inward instead. And the process of mole hunts necessarily derails efforts by those not investigating the breaches, by sheer intimidation as well as misdirection from top officials in order to trick their own agents into exposing themselves.


Purges are even worse, not just because of their usual scope. Purges in regimes like Iran usually involve dominant factions exerting power to get rid of their opponent factions while using the excuse of security. In the most memorable example, Stalin infamously purged thousands of his officers from the military not long before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and nearly reached Moscow. The infighting could take years and leave the IRGC without enough focus to suppress popular discontent -- and also signal to that restive population that the time is ripe for change, not to mention add more dissenters to their mix.


Arresting a couple of dozen people in the immediate aftermath of the Haniyeh hit isn't a purge ... yet. But consider another famous example of a purge tied also to an assassination attempt: the 20 July 1944 Stauffenberg plot to kill Hitler. The Nazis had rounded up nearly all of the major Stauffenberg assassination plotters within a day, yet they ended up purging thousands by the time they finished. Almost 5,000 people got executed, some as Berlin was falling to the Russians nine months later. It doesn't take much for mole hunts to spin out of control into outright purges, especially in paranoid regimes already riven with internal tensions.


Israel took real risks of escalation with this operation. However, it may pay off in ways that will actually address the real danger they face, which is not Hamas or Hezbollah but the radical-Islamist regime in Tehran. Radical regimes are fragile regimes, and that's especially true of the mulllahs. They will have to choose whether to keep fighting Israel or focus on internal strength, and that decision point could be rapidly approaching.

[Gunny]

We're not alone noticing:

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/08/03/boom-contd-mole-hunt-raging-in-tehran-n3792644

Apparently, July was a bad month for protective services globally. Just sayin'.


Anyway, the humiliation has produced one predictable result already. And for Israel, it couldn't come at a better time, and perhaps also for the long-restive population under the thumb of the IRGC and the mullahs:


Iran has arrested more than two dozen people, including senior intelligence officers, military officials and staff workers at a military-run guesthouse in Tehran, in response to a huge and humiliating security breach that enabled the assassination of a top leader of Hamas, according to two Iranians familiar with the investigation.


The high-level arrests came after the killing in an explosion early Wednesday of Ismail Haniyeh, who had led Hamas’s political office in Qatar and was visiting Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president and staying at the guesthouse in northern Tehran, Iran’s capital. ...


Quite the different reaction from Tehran than DC :)

[revelarts]

@fj1200 (http://www.debatepolicy.com/member.php?u=728)





Just turned on FOX and they are in segment: Israel At War

They are discussing a Kirby comment regarding just this: Israeli infiltration of Iranian leadership.

Came down regarding Kirby: 'He can't say whether or not it's true Israel has infiltrated.' OR 'He can't say.'

I know what I'd guess.

I wonder if the Israelis have infiltrated any other nations leadership.

[Gunny]

I wonder if the Israelis have infiltrated any other nations leadership.If they're smart.