Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah He fled Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli attack and is now deeply concerned about Israeli infiltration at high levels of government in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.
Immediately after the September 17 attack on Hezbollah’s jammed pagers, Khamenei sent a message to an envoy to implore Hezbollah’s secretary general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had Hezbollah operatives and planned to kill He, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, told Reuters.
The “messenger”, says the officer, was a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforousan, who was with Nasrallah in his hideout when he was hit by Israeli bombs and also killed.
Khamenei, who has remained in a secure location inside Iran since Saturday, personally ordered a barrage of about 200 missiles to be fired at Israel on Tuesday, a senior Iranian official said.
Nasrallah’s death prompted Iranian authorities to thoroughly investigate potential infiltrators within Iran’s own ranks, from the powerful Revolutionary Guards to senior security officials, a second senior Iranian official said. They are particularly focused on those who travel abroad or have family members living outside Iran, the first official said.
Tehran was suspicious of some guards traveling to Lebanon, he says. Concerns arose when one of these individuals began asking about Nasrallah’s whereabouts, especially how long he would remain in certain locations, the official adds.
The person was arrested along with several others, the first official said, after raising alarms in Iranian intelligence circles. The suspect’s family has moved out of Iran, the official said, without identifying the suspect or his family.
The second official says the assassination sowed distrust between Tehran and Hezbollah, as well as within Hezbollah.
“The trust that held everything together is gone,” the employee says.
The Supreme Leader “no longer trusts anyone”, says a third source close to the Iranian establishment.
Source: Reuters, Times of Israel
