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Jomaili to Asharq Al-Awsat: Iraqi Intelligence Suggested Khomeini’s Assassination in Najaf but Saddam Refused

Jomaili to Asharq Al-Awsat: Iraqi Intelligence Suggested Khomeini’s Assassination in Najaf but Saddam Refused
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Jomaili to Asharq Al-Awsat: Iraqi Intelligence Suggested Khomeini’s Assassination in Najaf but Saddam Refused

Jomaili to Asharq Al-Awsat: Iraqi Intelligence Suggested Khomeini’s Assassination in Najaf but Saddam Refused

Is it true that Saddam Hussein saved Khomeini’s life when he rejected a suggestion to assassinate him while he was staying in al-Najaf? What about the tale of the explosive that was placed in Khomeini’s pillow at his home in Tehran?

These questions, and many more, had remained unanswered for decades. I sought the man who would provide the answers and found them with Iraq’s former intelligence officer Salem al-Jomaili.

When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, al-Jomaili was director of the US branch in the intelligence agency. He was quick to destroy whatever documents he could find before American forces found him. He was soon arrested by the invading forces and spent nine months in prison. He left for Oman soon after his release.

Asharq Al-Awsat sat down with al-Jomaili to discuss several intriguing events that took place during his time in office. In the mid-1960s Khomeini came to Iraq. After the July 1968 revolution, Iraq opposed the Shah of Iran’s decision to annex the three Emirati islands.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi mobilized his forces to the Iraqi border as a threat. Khomeini urged Iranian soldiers to mutiny against the Shah, saying no Muslim should fight another. The Shah also backed the Kurdish opposition in Iraq and Iraq started backing the Iranian opposition against the Shah, recalled al-Jomaili.

“We allowed Khomeini’s supporters to carry out activities in Iraq and granted them permits. They were allowed to set up a radio station and he kicked off his political activity,” he added.

After the 1975 Algiers agreement, Iran stopped its support to the Kurds and their movement collapsed. Among the agreement’s conditions was for the Iranian opposition to cease its activity in Iraq. Khomeini was urged to take into account the new situation and respect the conditions of Iraq’s ties with Iran. He refused.

“We informed him that he must leave Iraq if he remained insistent on continuing his activity. So, he headed to Kuwait where he remained stuck in a border region before Iraqi authorities agreed to his return to al-Najaf,” said al-Jomaili.

The relationship with Khomeini and between Iraq and Iran became complicated after authorities realized that he would not comply with orders and that he would not be easily contained. Amid the tensions, the intelligence agency met to discuss the situation. One officer proposed that Khomeini be assassinated with the blame being pinned on Shiite Spiritual leader Abu al-Qasim Khoei, effectively eliminating both figures from the equation.

The intelligence agency did not dare present the second part of the plan to Saddam, but only revealed the part about Khomeini’s assassination, added al-Jomaili. The president opposed it, saying: “Doesn’t the intelligence agency know that he is Iraq’s guest?”

Soon after, Khomeini left for Paris. Saddam dispatched an envoy to ask Khomeini about what he would do if the Shah regime were to collapse. Khomeini revealed that once the Islamic revolution succeeds, attention would be focused on toppling of the Baath regime in Iraq.

Saddam then realized that a confrontation would be inevitable once Khomeini returned to Tehran.

The Shah was eventually toppled and Khomeini came to power. Shiite movements in Iraq soon began to express their support to him. Khomeini began inciting Iraqi Shiite Authority Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim to declare an Islamic revolution in Iraq. This hatred to the Iraqi regime led to a series of attacks by Iran’s proxies in Iraq. Among the attacks was the failed assassination attempts against Tariq Aziz and Saadoun Hamady.

It appeared that a clash was imminent, “which is why we kept detained an Iranian pilot whose plane was downed over Iraq. We kept him as evidence before the eruption of the war to show that Iran was the side that started the fight,” al-Jomaili said.

After the Islamic revolution, Khomeini turned against the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran in spite of its role in ousting the Shah. The war then erupted and “we had to bring in essential forces. The confrontation with Iran was open and unrestrained,” recalled al-Jomaili. “The Mojahedin members had experience in military and security work and had deep roots in society. We also had relations with the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran. These ties allowed Iraqi intelligence to deal painful blows to the Iranian regime.”

Painful blows

The Iraqi intelligence agency offered all forms of media, technical, financial and military support to the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Mojahedin. The first target was the Iranian Shura Council and the operation was to be overseen by head of intelligence and Saddam’s half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti.

The operation called for booby-trapping the location of the council meeting. It took place in June 1981. Seventy-two leading figures were killed in the attack, including head of the judicial authority Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti, ministers, lawmakers and other senior officials.

Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was another target. He was targeted by an explosive, which was placed in a tape recorder, while he was delivering a speech in Tehran. The attack left him with a paralyzed right hand. Khomeini was also set to attend the event, but he was delayed and survived.

Tikriti then set his sights on a bigger target, Khomeini himself. The opportunity presented itself in 1981. Reaching Khomeini would be difficult, but a cleric, who was close to him and also sympathetic to the Mojahedin, helped carry out the plan. Intelligence agents prepared a small explosive and placed it in Khomeini’s bed pillow. The bomb went off at the wrong time when Khomeini was out of his house

The attacks continued. Iranian President Mohammad-Ali Rajai was assassinated in Tehran in August 1981, less than two months after he came to power.

Bitter conflict in Kuwait

Al-Jomaili said the bitter conflict between Iraq and Iran was not restricted to their territories. It even reached Kuwait. Iraq’s pro-Iran Dawa party supported the use of Kuwaiti territory to carry out attacks against Baghdad.

Al-Jomaili accused Iran of attempting to assassinate Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad Al Sabah in 1985. The Dawa party targeted Tariq Azaz in an attack at Kuwait’s Mustansiriyah University. Iraqi intelligence retaliated with the attempt on the life of Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who was on his way to meet the Emir.

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Arab World

Syrian Troop Killings Expose Repeated Attacks, Security Lapses

Syrian army personnel on a military vehicle in Deir Hafer, rural Aleppo, in January 2026. (Reuters)
Syrian army personnel on a military vehicle in Deir Hafer, rural Aleppo, in January 2026. (Reuters)
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Syrian Troop Killings Expose Repeated Attacks, Security Lapses

Syrian army personnel on a military vehicle in Deir Hafer, rural Aleppo, in January 2026. (Reuters)
Syrian army personnel on a military vehicle in Deir Hafer, rural Aleppo, in January 2026. (Reuters)

The recent killing of two Syrian army members near Manbij, east of Aleppo, was not an isolated attack. It was part of a recurring pattern of strikes on government forces, exposing serious administrative and security gaps that groups opposed to Syria’s new administration are using to target its personnel.

Syria’s Ministry of Defense media and communications department said on June 20 that two soldiers from the 76th Division were killed after unknown gunmen attacked them near Manbij.

The soldiers were riding a motorcycle on a road near the city when they came under direct fire.

Since the fall of the Assad regime, Asharq Al-Awsat has tracked many similar attacks on Syrian security and army personnel. Most have occurred as members were heading to or leaving their posts, often on motorcycles or via irregular transport.

Many see the pattern as evidence of weak protection measures and poor organization of personnel rotations.

Rural Aleppo has witnessed several assassinations this year. Among the most prominent were the killing of two Syrian army members in March and another member of the Interior Ministry in April near the town of al-Rai.

Similar incidents have also been reported across most Syrian provinces, including Daraa, Latakia, rural Hama and Homs.

Embarrassing the Syrian state

Demands have grown for personnel to avoid moving alone, wearing military uniforms or using motorcycles in remote areas where the risk is high and support is hard to reach.

Major Khaled al-Abdullah, director of the Syrian interior minister’s office, said the defense and interior ministries had repeatedly issued circulars banning personnel from wearing official uniforms outside working hours and requiring them to follow safety measures suited to Syria’s current conditions.

He said the immediate aim of attacks by groups opposed to the new administration, including Islamic State and remnants of the ousted regime, was to “try to embarrass the Syrian state.”

Abdullah stressed that authorities were working hard to impose security, eliminate armed groups and organizations, and had made significant progress on what he called a difficult path.

But in remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he also pointed to “continued internal and external challenges that the Syrian state is working to overcome and whose danger it seeks to end.”

Manbij, the most dangerous route

Abu Mohammed al-Hussein, who oversees a cluster of checkpoints in eastern rural Aleppo, said the movement of personnel had become a problem. He said he had repeatedly asked for buses to transport rotating shift members, especially in rural areas far from the city center.

Hussein said one member of his checkpoint group survived an assassination attempt on the Manbij-al-Bab road in eastern rural Aleppo at the end of March. The incident pushed him to issue special orders regulating how his personnel move.

“A civilian car offered to take one of my men to Aleppo city,” he said. “After they had driven several miles, they claimed there was an emergency and said they had to return. As soon as he got out, the driver’s companion fired several shots at him with a pistol. Two hit his magazine pouch and one pierced his foot. He survived by a miracle.”

He said shift rotations are “decided centrally by sector commanders” and are often carried out at night because service areas are far from where personnel live. He said a ban on carrying weapons and moving through residential areas had also made personnel easier targets.

“With repeated assassination attempts, I issued a decision banning nighttime shift rotations, prohibiting movement in civilian cars or on motorcycles, which have also become easy targets, and limiting transport to road security vehicles,” he added.

Hussein said they were still waiting for approval of a request to allocate a bus to transport security and military checkpoint personnel deployed along the Aleppo-Manbij road.

He described it as “one of the most dangerous land routes,” linking Aleppo to outlying areas and Raqqa province, and passing through an area that remained for years under the control of the ousted regime and the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Ban on keeping weapons

Haider al-Mohammed, a special tasks member, disagreed. He said “transport buses are, in practice, the easy target” and are often attacked, meaning the problem of securing personnel goes beyond transport.

He said decisions that stripped personnel of the means to protect their safety and identity were the direct reason behind the rise in assassinations, alongside the exceptional conditions in the country and the process of “clearing out groups that believe they can create chaos and fear.”

He said among the most important of these decisions were “the ban on wearing face coverings, the ban on keeping registered weapons, and the strict instruction not to carry personal weapons, along with leniency over wearing official uniforms.”

As a result, he said, personnel are exposed, easy targets for these groups, and left without weapons to defend themselves.

On this point, Major Khaled al-Abdullah said Syria’s security and military institutions were working to “implement solutions to facilitate and reduce regular movement in a way that helps end the threat and strengthen the safety of their personnel.”

He said the pattern of attacks “confirms their randomness.” The failure to select specific targets or have prior knowledge of the personnel being targeted, he said, was “an attempt to create chaos and confuse the Syrian state.”

Arab World

Hamas Seeks to Put Gaza on US-Iran Talks Agenda

A Palestinian child weeps next to the body of his brother, killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Wednesday (AFP)
A Palestinian child weeps next to the body of his brother, killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Wednesday (AFP)
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Hamas Seeks to Put Gaza on US-Iran Talks Agenda

A Palestinian child weeps next to the body of his brother, killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Wednesday (AFP)
A Palestinian child weeps next to the body of his brother, killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Wednesday (AFP)

At a time when a purported ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip faces continued Israeli breaches and violations, Hamas has moved toward Iran in a step that showed it was counting on a “supportive” position on Gaza by having the issue placed on the agenda of ongoing talks between Washington and Tehran.

The Hamas move came in an announced phone call on Tuesday between Basem Naim, deputy head of the movement’s Arab and Islamic Relations Office, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

According to a Hamas statement, Araghchi and Naim “discussed the latest developments in the Iranian-US negotiations and the Palestinian issue, especially as it relates to the Gaza Strip,” with Naim praising “Iran’s positions toward the Palestinian cause and its continued support for Gaza amid the continued Israeli aggression.”

A statement published by Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Wednesday quoted Araghchi as telling Naim that “the Iranian team will raise the Palestinian issue in the ongoing negotiations,” adding that it would also raise “the issue of the occupation’s continued aggression in all international forums.”

The call came amid Iranian-US negotiations that include an understanding on a ceasefire in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel.

It was the second Hamas-Iran call in June. On June 4, Araghchi called Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’s leader in Gaza and head of its negotiating delegation. The statement at the time, however, did not clearly refer to bringing Gaza into the Iranian-US negotiations.

It only said Hayya had praised the Iranian negotiating team’s position, which stressed the need for a simultaneous halt to the war on all fronts in the region.

Asharq Al-Awsat tried to contact Hamas official Basem Naim, but he did not respond to calls.

“Not a replacement for mediators”

Two senior Hamas sources abroad told Asharq Al-Awsat in separate remarks that the call between Naim and Araghchi came as part of “continued communication with various parties in an attempt to consolidate the ceasefire in Gaza.”

One of them said: “This does not amount to abandoning the negotiations track through the main mediator countries, Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye.”

One source said Naim’s mandate was to communicate with all Arab and Islamic parties as part of a policy of openness to all sides, in a way that serves the interests of the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, as Israeli violations continue and no party has been able to compel Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to stop its violations in the enclave.

Still, the second source did not conceal that Hamas was “looking for a pressing Iranian role in the current negotiations to place Gaza on their agenda, as was the case in Lebanon, where Iran succeeded through its efforts in reaching a ceasefire,” according to his assessment.

The second source said: “We, Hamas, count on any position that supports us, the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian cause in general. But it is unlikely that such a step will succeed, given the insistence of the United States and Israel on separating the fronts as much as possible, and given the consensus and understanding inside the movement that the Gaza file has for some time been separate during the war.”

“Positive signs from Lebanon create an opening”

The two sources agreed, however, that there had been “a positive development on the Lebanon front” imposed by the Iranian-US negotiations. That has tempted some Hamas leadership circles to try to “use the opportunity to push for placing Gaza on the negotiations agenda, even though they expect their efforts to fail.”

In recent days, Hamas media outlets have intensified a similar narrative, attributed to an unnamed Iranian source, saying the negotiations include consolidating the ceasefire in Gaza.

A third Hamas source in Gaza said the movement had consistently looked for an Iranian position in support of it in the negotiations during the war. But “it is clear that the United States did not allow, and will not allow, that. It considers Gaza a separate front, and there are efforts being made on that front to consolidate the ceasefire.”

The source added: “It can be said clearly that Iran adopted the halt to the war on the Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq fronts on the basis that those fronts entered the war more broadly after the assassination of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, while the war in Gaza had started much earlier.”

A fourth source from a Palestinian faction that receives support from Iran said, “The leaders and members of factions linked to Tehran had hoped it would succeed in stopping the war in Gaza.”

“That would have counted heavily in their favor and in favor of the factions, given the inability of mediators and guarantors to compel Israel to abide by the agreement and stop the violations.”

Factional sources had said that “during the factions’ meetings in Cairo, leaders from several sides advised the Hamas leadership not to count on the Iranian negotiations track, and to take more important steps within the framework of a unified Palestinian position to produce a positive response to proposals related to weapons and other issues.”

Hamas’s evolving position, after the latest call between Naim and Araghchi, appears to come amid voices rejecting amendments made by Nickolay Mladenov, the High Representative for Gaza at the Board of Peace.

Some parties inside the movement viewed the amendments as “primarily serving Israel, and not adhering to US President Donald Trump’s plan, under which the ceasefire agreement was signed in October 2025.”

Arab World

Israel Army Says Struck Suspected Hezbollah Fighters in Lebanon ‘Security Zone’

Stray dogs walk past the rubble of flattened homes and businesses, destroyed by the Israeli military, in the southern Lebanese village of Tibnin on June 24, 2026. (AFP)
Stray dogs walk past the rubble of flattened homes and businesses, destroyed by the Israeli military, in the southern Lebanese village of Tibnin on June 24, 2026. (AFP)
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Israel Army Says Struck Suspected Hezbollah Fighters in Lebanon ‘Security Zone’

Stray dogs walk past the rubble of flattened homes and businesses, destroyed by the Israeli military, in the southern Lebanese village of Tibnin on June 24, 2026. (AFP)
Stray dogs walk past the rubble of flattened homes and businesses, destroyed by the Israeli military, in the southern Lebanese village of Tibnin on June 24, 2026. (AFP)

The Israeli military said it carried out an airstrike targeting suspected Hezbollah fighters who crossed into the so-called "security zone" it has created in southern Lebanon, the second such incident it reported within hours on Wednesday.

"A short while ago, a vehicle carrying suspects was identified crossing the security zone in the Ali al-Taher Ridge area, posing a threat to Israeli soldiers," the military said.

"Following the identification, the Israeli Air Force struck the suspects in order to remove the threat," it added, vowing that the military "would not allow Hezbollah" fighters to harm its troops.