Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in the heart of Iran’s capital comes as major game changer in regional politics. The incident comes at a particularly dangerous moment for the Middle East, as Hamas continues to fight Israel’s troops in Gaza and as Israel and Hezbollah’s growing hostilities threaten to turn into a larger regional conflict.
The news was so unbelievable that it could have fit better in an episode of the famous spy series Tehran. Just hours before he was killed, Haniyeh had met Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the new reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian and praised Tehran’s support for Hamas and Palestine. As the world was watching with bated breath how Pezeshkian would reorchestrate Iran’s image and build bridges with the West, Tehran now finds itself stuck deeper in the regional conflict.
Iranians and Hamas leaders were quick to accuse Israel of carrying out the attack. Tehran has claimed that short-range projectile with a 7-kg warhead was used to assassination Haniyeh. However, according to the New York Times, Haniyeh was killed by explosive devices that were covertly smuggled into his residence.
Delhi-based strategic analyst Lt Gen Subrata Saha stated that Haniyeh’s assassination was likely carried out by employing “a potent mix of traditional intelligence techniques with high technology means.” The fact that Haniyeh was targeted in a facility heavily guarded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps suggests involvement of their own officials in the operation. Few days before the attack, Iran’s intelligence minister Esmail Khatib boasted of completely neutralizing Mossad’s espionage network inside Iran. However, the catastrophic intelligence failure exposed serious gaps in Iran’s national security architecture.
Iran has already started a headhunt and many suspects including senior intelligence officers, military officials have been detained. Even though Israel has not given any official statement on the matter, there is a reason to believe that Israel was involved. Israel-based Prof Tal Pavel stated that Israel has advanced military, intelligence, and cyber capabilities to target its adversaries from ground as well as from miles away. In 2020, Israel used an AI-powered machine gun to assassinate Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The recent assassinations carried out by Israeli operatives within and outside Iran have alarmed the Iranian authorities. Journalist and historian Arash Azizi claims that since 2009, Israelis have managed to assassinate numerous leaders connected to the IRGC or Iran’s nuclear program. Between 2010 and 2020, at least five Iranian nuclear experts died in allegedly Israeli-instigated foreign-linked killings.
For the last few decades, Iran and Israel have been fighting a covert war that involves espionage operations and spy games. In 2023, Israel’s discreet spy service Mossad disclosed the specifics of an operation conducted inside Iran. As per reports, one of the IRGC operatives – Yusef Shahbazi Abbasalilu who had plotted to attack Israeli residents in Cyprus was caught inside Iran by Mossad agents. A clip from Yusuf’s video confession was made public wherein he described how he was introduced to multiple IRGC contacts and recruits (including Pakistani nationals) in Cyprus. Israel publicly praised Cyprus in testimony for its assistance in thwarting the Iranian plan. Some sources assert that Tehran has been trying to arrange a spy-swap to secure Yusef’s release from Israeli custody.
Similar operations were also carried out in 2022. In April that year, Mansour Rasouly was apprehended for questioning by Israeli intelligence operatives at his residence in Iran. In the audio recording, he reportedly confessed that the IRGC sent him to Turkey to execute plans to assassinate an “Israeli diplomat in Turkey, an American general stationed in Germany, and a journalist in France”. IRGC negated the Israeli accusations stating that Mansour was a farmer, with no military ties.
In July 2022, Mossad is believed to have detained and questioned IRGC deputy commander Yadollah Khedmati in Iran. Iran International – a London-based diaspora channel asserted that Khedmati confessed about his role in the delivery of weapons to Iran’s proxies in the region. Interestingly, in this case, Tehran acknowledged his links with IRGC.
Tehran has never been able to orchestrate assassinations and counterattacks of the same magnitude. Rather it largely relies on its large network of militias in the region to fight Israel. In 2021, Mossad chief David Barnea had stated that Israel will not attack Iranian proxies but will avenge Tehran “on Iranian soil” for arming these proxies.
The October 7 attacks by Hamas came as a major provocation. Since then, many Hamas leaders including Haniyeh were on Israel’s hit list. After the US branded him as a global terrorist in 2018, Haniyeh had moved his base to Qatar; a country with which Israel maintains informal relations. Israel however, has never attempted any such open assassination operations there. To eliminate Haniyeh inside the Iranian territory thus has a huge strategic significance.
As Iran, along with its proxies, are gearing up for a counter-attack, the world leaders are hustling to simmer down the tensions from escalating into a full-blown regional war. The ball is now in Iran’s court!
*With inputs from Dr Tal Pavel – Israel military veteran and cyber expert and Lt Gen Subrata Saha (Retd) – Former Member of India’s National Security Council’s Advisory Board, Deputy Chief of Army Staff.
