Tehran- Fears of a regional war grew further in West Asia after Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a statement disclosing that Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed using a “short-range projectile” launched from outside of his accommodation in Tehran.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the IRGC said that based on investigations conducted so far, the attack against Haniyeh “was carried out by firing a short-range projectile carrying about 7kg [15.4lb] of explosive materials and launched from outside the guests residency”.
It added that Israel will receive “a harsh punishment in due time and place” for Haniyeh’s assassination, which, it said, was “supported by the criminal government” of the United States.
The IRGC’s statement is different from an investigation published by Western media that indicated a bomb was smuggled into Haniyeh’s guest house months before his stay there last week.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied a role, while the US has said it “was not aware of or involved in” Haniyeh’s killing that threatens to plunge the Middle East into further conflict amid Israel’s relentless war on the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian leader and his bodyguard were killed in an Iranian government guest house in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday.
Haniyeh had gone to the Iranian capital to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected President Dr Masoud Pezeshkian.
According to a security analyst, quoted by Al-Jazeera, the narrative Iran will adopt to describe the method of assassination of Ismail Haniyeh will shape its response to Israel.
On Saturday, the IRGC accused Israel of being behind the assassination, supported by the American government. Tel Aviv is yet to claim any credit for the killing of Hamas’s political chief. Haniyeh was buried in a Muslim ceremony in Doha, Qatar Friday.
In an interview with The New Arab, a London-based Arabic daily, Khaled Qaddoumi, Hamas’s representative in Tehran, refuted the claims by The New York Times of a bomb blast being behind the killing of Haniyeh Friday.
“At 1.37 am, an explosion rocked the building. Qaddoumi recounted that he saw thick smoke and later discovered that Haniyeh had been killed. He believes the attack was carried out by an aerial projectile, possibly a missile or shell, which caused significant damage to the building,” reports The New Arab.
Haniyeh, who was appointed the chief of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017, had been living permanently in Doha, Qatar, since 2019. He was known for travelling across the region to build support for the organisation. He was also a former Prime Minister of Palestine between 2006 and 2007.
Haniya’s assassination has sparked fears of a wider regional conflict and of a direct confrontation between US backed Israel and Iran if Tehran retaliates.
In April, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. The barrage came less than two weeks after an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria and it marked the first time Iran had launched a direct military assault on Israel despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran does not recognize Israel and supports anti-Israeli militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
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