Tehran: Israel’s elite intelligence agency, Mossad—the second second-largest espionage agency in the West after the CIA—had reportedly enlisted Iranian security agents to plant explosives in a building in Tehran where Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was staying.
Earlier, it was planned to assassinate Haniyeh in May during his visit to Tehran for the funeral of former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, according to a Telegraph report. But, the operation was aborted. Two Iranian officials who spoke to Telegraph claimed that overwhelming crowds would have posed a risk of failure and thus the operation was aborted.
The operation was changed. Two agents, working under Mossad’ direction, placed explosive devices in three separate rooms of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) guesthouse in northern Tehran, the report claimed. The location was strategically chosen as in all possibility Haniyeh would have stayed there.
What is Mossad and how it operated?
Mossad has a $3 billion annual budget. It has 7,000 staff and several departments. The details of its internal structure are mostly kept secret. It has a network of informants and agents inside Palestinian militant groups. It also has agents in hostile countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. The intelligence agency’s spy network gives them the knowledge of militant leaders’ movements. It helps in executing precise assassinations. It has a special operations division, also known as Metsada. It carries out highly sensitive assassinations, sabotage, paramilitary, and psychological warfare operations.
Operation to eliminate Haniyeh
Surveillance footage shows the agents moving entering and exiting multiple rooms within minutes, according to The Telegraph. According to the report, they exited Iran undetected after planting the explosives and maintained a source in the country. On the day of assassination, they remotely detonated the explosives in Haniyeh’s room. Officials within the IRGC now believe that Mossad had employed agents from the Ansar-al-Mahdi protection unit. It is a group responsible for safeguarding high-ranking officials inside and outside the country.
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