By Haider Abbas
The Political Bureau Chief of Palestinian Hamas, Ismael Haniyeh has been assassinated in Tehran, the capital of Iran, on July 31, after he had attended the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian. He was the chief interlocutor of ceasefire talks, from Hamas side and Israel, which are at war since October 7, 2023, and since then, Israel has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and has reduced whole of Gaza and Rafah into a rubble. Qatar, Egypt, Russia and China have condemned the killing. India, till August 1, had maintained silence. Nitin Gadkari represented India at the inaugural ceremony in Tehran.
His death is a colossal damage to the reputation of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a message to the entire Iranian establishment. Iran has blamed Israel for it. His bodyguard Wasim Abu Shaaban was also killed. He was staying in an IRGC facility, the top most Iranian security agency, attached to the President’s compound. The attack on such a place is akin to killing someone in a Blair House! The US President Guest House.
Immediately after the killing of Ismael Haniyeh, Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who has just returned from US, convened a three hours ‘security-meeting’ and thereafter boasted, in his address to the nation, that Iran’s proxies have been given a crushing-blow. He did not name Ismael Haniyeh. Iran is now, very deeply embarrassed by such an extraordinary security lapse but will it try to go for a full-scale war with Israel? As Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatullah Sayyid Khamenei has threatened Israel for a ‘harsh-punishment’. Haniyeh;s funeral prayers were led by Ayatullah Khamenei and joined by thousands on Tehran streets. US, however has denied its role in the killing. Iran had already been nursing the assassination of its last President Ibrahim Raisi, purportedly killed after his helicopter crashed, on May 19, which too is believed to have been the handiwork of an Israeli sabotage?
Now the question is how could Israel do it, that too right in the Iran’s capital? The hazy details firstly were that a long range, precision missile, was launched from another country, in the early hours, which scripted the death of Haniyeh. But that all has been rubbished as a report in The New York Times 1 on August 1, has informed that a bomb had been fitted in the same room, used quite often by Haniyeh on his visits to Iran. This is to definitely fuel a question if there are moles in Iranian establishment, working for Israel, which is most likely, as unless there in an insider, a job of this propensity just cannot be possible. Palestinian Islamic Jihad Chief Ziyad Al-Nakhalah, was next door, and remained unhurt. This clearly shows that the target was well planned Haniyeh. The bomb was detonated through a remote.
There is no more room left to disbelieve that Iran had ever been rendered sterile, since way back from 2007, when the Israeli Stuxnet-the cyber malware, was implanted by the Israel intelligence Mossad and US intelligence CIA, through their assets, inside Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. There is a whole list of Iran’s nuclear scientists to have been killed by Mossad operatives in all these last twenty years, the prime most being of Mohsin Fakhrizade, through limpid bombs attached to their cars etc. Only a few years back Israel exfilterated the whole Iran’s nuclear programme, from an extremely well-guarded facility in Central Iran. It is no wonder, out of these infiltrators, US and Israel are together in campaign that Iran is only a few weeks behind to become a nuclear state.
It is also to be taken into account that this killing had come only within hours when Israel claimed it had killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukur, in an airstrike on a south Beirut suburb, Lebanon, but surprisingly Israel did has owned this killing. Fuad Shukur is considered to be number-two in Hezbollah hierarchy and had been on US and Israel target for long. He was wanted by US FBI for his role in 1984 Barracks bombing of Beirut, which killed 241 US you soldiers. Israel through it also did try to placate US to seek more of its unstinted support in its war against Palestine. Israel outright ‘no claim’ for Haniyeh death is also for the fact that he was heading the team of negotiators towards the ceasefire talks over Gaza. Is his death now an end to any further negotiations between Israel-Hamas?
In case there is now to be an Iranian attack on Israel, apart from Iraq, Houthis from Yemen, from Syria and Lebanon and vice-versa from Israel are underway, it cannot be discounted that Iran is surrounded by around 40 US military underground military facilities and bases located in neighbouring countries. If a full-blown war is to be spearheaded, Iran will most likely be getting backing by its most trusted friend Russia and also its ally and partner China. Iran’s supply of its cost-effective drones to Russia in its war against NATO and US led Ukraine, has won a far greater trust from Russia.
How the things would unfold is what the world is watching with bated breath, as one spark is now to be enough to ignite the whole region into a conflict which has every potential to change into a third-world-war. How Benjamin Netanyahu will feel the heat, can be assuaged that just by the first half of July, according the Haaretz 2 that The Shin Bet , Israel internal security agency, has purchased a ‘Finnish-made anti-drone defense system to protect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It claims that the Israeli War Ministry, ordered the Airfence system produced by Finnish company Sensofusion. The Airfence system uses radio frequency sensors to identify the location of a drone and its operator, and can electronically intercept it either bringing it down or taking control of the drone itself. The system is equipped with a continually updating database of the main commercially-made drones, and provides 10 square kilometers of coverage.’
As for Iran, unless there is a ‘massive’ clean-up in its backyard, such incidents will never stop. It hadn’t been that long when on June 23, IRGC Intelligence Chief Hussain Taeb was removed, informs Axios 3 and General Hussain Salami replaced him. But what did he do? Embarrassed Iran to no further ends!
How and what happens, all along as US elections are also underway, until November 4, is all yet to be seen.
- The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner and a political analyst.
References:
1-https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/world/middleeast/how-hamas-leader-haniyeh-killed-iran-bomb.html
3- https://www.axios.com/2022/06/23/iran-irgc-intelligence-chief-taeb-israel-turkey
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