Mossad hired Iranian agents to plant bombs in Haniyeh’s residence.
Israel’s spy agency Mossad hired Iranian security agents to plant bombs in armed Palestinian group Hamas’s chief leader Ismail Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran, The Telegraph reported.
Mossad had planned to kill Haniyeh in May during his visit to Tehran to attend the funeral of former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
But the operation was cancelled due to large crowds, which posed a major risk of failure, according to two Iranian officials who spoke to The Telegraph.
Explained: Death waited for Ismail Haniyeh for 2 months in a posh Tehran locality
The plan was then changed.
Two agents, working under Mossad’s direction, placed explosive devices in three separate rooms of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) guesthouse in northern Tehran.
This location was strategically chosen as it was likely that Haniyeh would stay there.
How Mossad Functions
Mossad is the deadliest spy agency in the West after the CIA.
It has a $3 billion annual budget and 7,000-strong staff
Mossad has multiple departments, but the details of its internal structure are mostly hidden.
It not only has a network of informants and agents inside Palestinian militant groups, but also in hostile countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.
The intelligence agency’s vast spy network provides them with intimate knowledge of militant leaders’ movements, enabling them to execute precise assassinations as and when necessitated.
The Special Operations Division, also known as Metsada, carries out highly sensitive assassinations, sabotage, paramilitary, and psychological warfare operations.
Operation To Eliminate Haniyeh
According to The Telegraph, surveillance footage, recovered by Iranian officials, shows the agents moving stealthily, entering and exiting multiple rooms within minutes.
After planting the explosives, they left Iran undetected but stayed connected with a source in the country.
In the early hours of Wednesday, at 2 am, the operatives remotely detonated the explosives in the room where Haniyeh was staying.
The explosion resulted in the death of Haniyeh, who was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
This killing has been verified by officials within the IRGC, who now believe Mossad employed agents from the Ansar-al-Mahdi protection unit, a group responsible for safeguarding high-ranking officials inside and outside the country.
“This is a humiliation for Iran and a huge security breach,” an IRGC official told The Telegraph.
A special working group has been established to devise strategies to mitigate the perception of this breach, the official added.
In response to this breach, the IRGC is considering its options for retaliation.
The timing of the assassination, coinciding with President Pezeshkian’s first day in office, has ignited suspicions about its intentionality.
During his campaign, President Pezeshkian had vowed to move away from the Islamic Republic’s provocative policies and to restore Iran’s standing through dialogue.
