Iran has arrested more than two dozen people, including senior intelligence officers, military officials and staff workers at a military-run guesthouse in Tehran after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, according to two Iranians familiar with the investigation.
Haniyeh was visiting Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president and staying at a guesthouse in northern Tehran when he was killed.
“The fervor of the response to the killing of Haniyeh underscores what a devastating security failure this was for Iran’s leadership, with the assassination occurring at a heavily guarded compound in the country’s capital within hours of the swearing-in ceremony of the country’s new president,” the New York Times reported.
Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, hired Iranian security agents to plant explosives in three separate rooms of the building where Haniyeh was staying, Britain’s the Telegraph reported.
Iranian officials and Hamas said Wednesday that Israel was responsible for the assassination. But Israel has not acknowledged that it was responsible for planting the bomb.
“The perception that Iran can neither protect its homeland nor its key allies could be fatal for the Iranian regime, because it basically signals to its foes that if they can’t topple the Islamic Republic, they can decapitate it,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the International Crisis Group.
The Revolutionary Guards Corps’ specialized intelligence unit for espionage has taken over the investigation and is hunting down suspects that it hopes will lead it to members of the assassin team that planned, aided and carried out the killing, according to the two Iranian officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigations.
The news of the sweeping arrests came after the Revolutionary Guards announced in a statement that “the scope and details of this incident are under investigation and will be announced in due course.”
After the attack, Iranian security agents raided the guesthouse compound, The New York Times reported. The agents placed all the guesthouse’s staff members under quarantine, arrested some, and confiscated all electronic devices, including personal phones, according to the two Iranians.
A separate team of agents interrogated senior military and intelligence officials with roles in safeguarding the capital. It placed a number of them under arrest until investigations are completed, according to the two Iranians.
When the security agents raided the guesthouse compound, they combed through every inch of it, inspecting surveillance cameras dating back months as well as guest lists. They also were examining the comings and goings of staff members, who are strictly vetted before employment and drawn from the rank and file of the Guards as well as from the Basij, its paramilitary volunteer task force, the two Iranian officials said.
The investigation also focused on Tehran’s international and domestic airports, where agents have been stationed, looking through months of footage on cameras from the arrival and departure lounges and examining flight lists, the two Iranians said. They said that Iran believes members of Mossad’s assassin team are still in the country and their goal is to arrest them.
An Iranian member of the Revolutionary Guards, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak, said he was not aware of the arrests, but said that security protocols had been completely overhauled in the past two days for senior officials. The security details for senior officials were changed, and electronic equipment such as mobile phones swapped. He said some senior officials had been moved to a different location.
