Ayatollah, Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khameneiwarned the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallahthat fled Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli attack last Friday. After his assassination, the supreme leader of the Ayatollah regime is deeply concerned about possible Israeli infiltration into senior government ranks in Tehranaccording to three Iranian sources told Reuters.
After the massive pager explosion of Hezbollah on September 17, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to demand that the secretary general of Hezbollah leave for Iran.
The supreme leader’s representative explicitly cited intelligence reports suggesting Tel Aviv had Hezbollah members and was planning to kill him, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
Khamenei’s envoy was a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary GuardsBrigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bunker when he was hit by Israeli bombs, also died in the attack.
Khameneiwho has been hiding in a safe place in Iran since Saturday, personally ordered launch of nearly 200 missiles against Israel this Tuesday, according to a senior Iranian official.
The attack was in retaliation for the deaths of Nasrallah and Nilforoushan, as well as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.
Israel began on Tuesday what it described as a “limited” land raid against Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon.
Nasrallah’s assassination followed two weeks of Israeli surgical strikes that destroyed weapons depots, eliminated half of Hezbollah’s leadership and decimated its top military command.
Paranoia in the Ayatollah regime
Iran’s fears over Khamenei’s security and loss of trust both within Hezbollah and the Iranian establishment could complicate the effective functioning of the so-called Axis of resistancean alliance of anti-Israeli armed groups.
This chaos makes it difficult for Hezbollah elects new leader, for fear that continued infiltrations would endanger the successor, four Lebanese sources told Reuters.
Nasrallah’s assassination led Iranian authorities to carefully investigate possible infiltrations into the regime’s own ranks, from the all-powerful Revolutionary Guards to top security officials, according to a second senior official in Tehran. They particularly focus on those who travel abroad or have family members living abroad.
Tehran became suspicious of some members of the Revolutionary Guards traveling to Lebanon, he said. Concerns arose when one of these individuals began to ask where Nasrallah was.
The suspect was arrested along with others, according to the first official, after alarm was expressed in Iranian intelligence circles.
