Israel is planning to assassinate Iran President Raisi, IRGC…
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has claimed that Israel is planning to assassinate Iranian President, Ibrahim Raisi, and other senior officials in an effort to politically destabilise Tehran.
Announcing the apparent revelation on its official Telegram channel, the IRGC cited anonymous Iranian sources who reportedly possessed intelligence that Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, is aiming to assassinate Raisi outside of Iran’s capital, Tehran, to “destabilise Iran and collapse its economy and national currency, which would lead to massive protests.”
That intelligence then compelled the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security to inform the Presidency of the plot, which reportedly led to Raisi cancelling several planned visits and the participation in occasions outside the capital “due to the gravity of the situation”.
The alleged Mossad plot comes amid Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett’s repeated statements over the months that Tel Aviv will take measures against Tehran if it continues to develop its nuclear programme, while negotiations continue between Iran and other nations over the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal.
READ: Iran nuclear deal hangs in balance amid IAEA standoff
Israel has long stated its opposition to that deal – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – due to the agreement enabling the lifting of sanctions on Iran, as well as due to claims that Iran planned to use it to buy time for the gradual increase of its nuclear stockpile and attainment of nuclear weapons.
The IRGC announcement about the alleged Israeli plan to assassinate Raisi is the latest of several reports from both sides warning about assassination plots from each other. Over the past week, security forces in Thailand reportedly thwarted a series of Iranian attempts to harm Western and Israeli targets in the country, according to Israeli media.
At the end of last month, too, Israel issued a “direct warning” to its citizens traveling or planning to travel to Turkiye over claims that they could be targeted by Iranian operatives seeking to avenge the recent assassination of a top IRGC colonel.
