According to Iranian sources who spoke to the British Telegraph, the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday was possible only after the Mossad hired Iranian security agents to plant explosive devices in three separate rooms of the building he stayed in.
According to the report, the original plan was to assassinate Haniyeh in May when he visited Iran to attend former President Ibrahim Raisi's funeral ceremony, who unexpectedly died in a helicopter crash. However, two senior Iranian officials told the newspaper the plan was postponed after a large crowd gathered in the building where Haniyeh was staying, jeopardizing the plan.
Instead, the Mossad hired two agents who planted explosives in three rooms in the Revolutionary Guards's guesthouse in northern Tehran, where Haniyeh was expected to stay. Although fleeing the country immediately afterward, the agents were captured on cameras entering and exiting the rooms within minutes, according to sources who viewed the footage. According to reports they left an intelligence source in Iran.
The explosion killed Haniyeh, who attended the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. "They are now certain that Mossad hired agents from the Ansar al-Mahdi protection unit," an official within the IRGC told the Telegraph from Tehran, referring to an IRGC unit responsible for the safety of high-ranking officials. Upon further investigation, they discovered additional explosive devices in two other rooms."
A second official within the elite military forces of the IRGC told the Telegraph, "This is a humiliation for Iran and a huge security breach." The official said a working group had been established to come up with ideas to portray the assassination as not being a security breach.
"It’s still a question for everyone how it happened, I can’t make sense of it. There must be something higher up in the hierarchy that no one knows about," he added. There is now an internal blame game taking over the IRGC, with different sectors accusing each other of the failure, revealed the first official who spoke to The Telegraph. Esmail Qaani, the commander of the IRGC Quds force, has been summoning people to be fired, arrested, and possibly executed, he said. "The breach has humiliated everyone."
The official added: "The Supreme Leader has summoned all the commanders several times over the past two days, he wants answers. For him, addressing the security breach is now more important than seeking revenge." The IRGC is currently evaluating its retaliatory options, possibly striking Tel Aviv along with its proxies such as Lebanese Hezbollah.
The assassination of Haniyeh in the Iranian capital has intensified fears about Israel’s reach and influence within Iran. Ali Younisi, Iran’s former intelligence minister, expressed concerns in a 2020 interview, saying, "All the officials of the Islamic Republic should be worried about their lives," he said.
"If the Zionist regime has not yet targeted the political authorities of the Islamic Republic, it is because it has not chosen to do so. This negligence to Mossad has allowed it to strike repeatedly and openly threaten the officials of the Islamic Republic,” he added.
The assassination of Haniyeh also coincided with Mr Pezeshkian’s first day in office. During his election campaign, he had distanced himself from previous provocative policies of the Islamic Republic and promised to restore Iran’s position on the international stage through dialogue.
President Pezeshkian's close aide suggested the security lapse may have been an intentional bid by the IRGC to harm the new president’s reputation. The aide, who worked on Pezeshkian’s election campaign, claimed the IRGC does not approve of his views on international diplomacy and other aspects of his reformist politics.
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President Pezeshkian
(Photo: Hossein Sepahvand/Office of the Iranian President via Getty Images)
"No unharmed brain can accept that this happened by accident, especially on Mr Pezeshkian’s first day in office," he said. "He may have to go to war with Israel in his first few days in office and it’s all because of the IRGC." However, Pezeshkian’s son, Dr Yousef Pezeshkian announced on Friday night that the nation’s priority "is not a war with Israel."
"Poverty, corruption, discrimination, inequality and wasteful political factions and debates are the real fronts in which the Iranian people are fighting against in our country," he said on his website. "Social reforms and progress in Iran are the best counter-attacks that we can direct at Israel," he added.
The New York Times reported on Friday that after the humiliating security breach, Iran arrested more than 24 people, including senior intelligence officers, military officials, and guesthouse staff where Haniyeh was assassinated. The report, according to sources familiar with the investigation, noted that the special intelligence unit of the Revolutionary Guards seized control of the investigation and the suspects, hoping they would lead them to the team that planned, assisted, and carried out the assassination.