Exclusive-Iran's Khamenei warned Nasrallah of an Israeli plot to assassinate him, sources said

Written by Samia Nakhoul and Laila Bassam

DUBAI/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now increasingly concerned about the entry of Israeli government officials into Tehran, said three Iranian sources. .

Shortly after the attack on Hezbollah's closed pages on September 17, Khamenei sent a message to the ambassador to urge the Hezbollah secretary-general to travel to Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives inside Hezbollah and was planning to do so. killed him, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, told Reuters.

The messenger, the official said, was the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bedroom when it was hit by Israeli bombs and was also killed.

Khamenei, who has been living in a safe haven inside Iran since Saturday, personally ordered the firing of about 200 missiles at Israel on Tuesday, a senior Iranian official said. The attack was in retaliation for the death of Nasrallah and Nilforoushan, the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.

The statement also highlighted the July assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Israel did not claim responsibility for Haniyeh's death.

Israel on Tuesday launched what it called a “limited offensive” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Iran's Foreign Ministry and the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who oversees the country's intelligence agency Mossad, did not respond to requests for comment.

Nasrallah's killing followed two weeks of direct Israeli strikes that destroyed weapons sites, eliminated part of Hezbollah's leadership council and undermined its top military authority.

Iran's fear of Khamenei's safety and the loss of trust, both within the establishment of Hezbollah and Iran and between them, appeared in interviews with 10 sources for this story, who described a situation that could complicate the effective operation of Iran's Axis of Resistance alliance. of armed groups opposed to Israel.

Founded with the support of Iran in the 1980s, Hezbollah has long been a feared member of the coalition.

The disruption makes it difficult for Hezbollah to choose a new leader, fearing that continued infiltration will put his successor at risk, four Lebanese sources said.

“In fact, Iran has lost a huge investment that it had in the past decades,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defense University, of the deep damage caused by Hezbollah that he says has reduced Iran's ability to strike at Israel's borders.

“It shook Iran to its core. It shows that Iran has gone deep again: not only did they kill Nasrallah, they killed Nilforoushan,” said Khamenei's former military adviser.

Losing Hezbollah's military power and the group's leadership could push Iran toward the kind of attacks on Israeli embassies and foreign workers it engaged in frequently before its military surge, Ranstorp said.

IRAN BINDS

Nasrallah's death has prompted Iranian authorities to investigate more people entering Iran, from the powerful Revolutionary Guards to senior security officials, a second Iranian official said. They are particularly focused on those who travel abroad or have relatives living outside Iran, the first official said.

Tehran had suspicions about some members of the Guards who were heading to Lebanon, he said. Concerns arose when one of these people started asking where Nasrallah was, especially asking how long he would stay in certain places, said the official.

The man was arrested along with several others, the first official said, after the outcry was heard in Iran's intelligence circles. The suspect's family has moved outside of Iran, the official said, without identifying the suspect and his relatives.

The second official said the killing had fueled mistrust between Tehran and Hezbollah, and within Hezbollah.

“The trust that held everything together has disappeared,” said the official.

The Supreme Leader “no longer trusts anyone,” said a third source close to the Iranian establishment.

Alarm bells were already ringing in Tehran and Hezbollah about Mossad infiltration after Hezbollah Commander Fuad Shukr was killed in July in an Israeli airstrike at a secret Beirut base while meeting with an IRGC commander, two Hezbollah sources and a Lebanese security official. he told Reuters at the time. That killing was followed a few hours later by the assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran.

Unlike Haniyeh's death, Israel publicly claimed responsibility for killing Shukr, a disrespectful person whom Nasrallah described at his funeral, as an important figure in the history of Hezbollah who built his most important power.

Shukr was key to the development of Hezbollah's most advanced weapons, including precision-guided missiles, and had been in charge of Shi'ite fighters against Israel for the past year, the Israeli military said.

Iranian fears about Israel's entry into its ranks began years ago. In 2021, the former president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that the head of Iran's intelligence service who was supposed to target Mossad agents was also an agent of the Israeli spy agency, telling CNN Turk that Israel had obtained sensitive documents about Iran's nuclear program, which is an indication . in a 2018 raid in which Israel obtained dozens of classified documents about the program.

And in 2021, the outgoing Israeli spy chief Yossi Cohen gave details about the raid, telling the BBC that 20 non-Israeli Mossad agents were involved in stealing the archive from the warehouse.

PAGER ALERT

Khamenei's invitation for Nasrallah to move to Iran came after thousands of pagers and walkie talkies used by Hezbollah exploded in deadly attacks on September 17 and 18, the official said. The attack is said to have been carried out by Israel, although it has not officially claimed responsibility.

Nasrallah, however, was confident in his security and relied entirely on his inner circle, the official said, despite Tehran's grave concerns about potential infiltrators within the Hezbollah movement.

Khamenei tried a second time, relaying another message through Nilforoushan to Nasrallah last week, urging him to leave Lebanon and move to Iran as a safe haven. But Nasrallah insisted on staying in Lebanon, the official said.

Several high-level meetings were held in Tehran following the pager explosion to discuss the security of Hezbollah and Nasrallah, the official said, but declined to disclose who attended those meetings.

At the same time, in Lebanon, Hezbollah began a massive investigation to purge Israeli spies among them, questioning hundreds of members after the pagers were detonated, three Lebanese sources told Reuters.

Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, a senior Hezbollah official, was leading the investigation, a Hezbollah source said. The investigation was proceeding rapidly, the source said, before the Israelis were killed a day after Nasrallah's assassination. Another raid early last week targeted other senior Hezbollah commanders, some of whom were involved in the investigation.

Kaouk had called for questioning Hezbollah officials involved in the transport and others “who participated, mediated and obtained pagers and walkie-talkies,” the source said.

A “thorough and comprehensive investigation” and a cleanup are needed after the killing of Nasrallah and other officials, the source said.

Ali al-Amin, editor-in-chief of Janoubia, a Shi'ite-focused news site and Hezbollah, said reports indicated that Hezbollah had detained hundreds of people for questioning after the pagers saga.

Hezbollah is reeling from Nasrallah's assassination in his basement under the HQ office, shocked at how Israel managed to infiltrate the group, seven sources said.

Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director of research at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut who focuses on Iran and Hezbollah, described the attack as “the biggest intelligence import by Israel” since Hezbollah was founded with Iranian support in its early days. -1980.

The current escalation in Israel follows nearly a year of cross-border fighting after Hezbollah began launching rocket attacks in support of its ally Hamas. A Palestinian group killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages when it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures.

In Gaza, Israeli retaliation has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

LOSS OF TRUST

Israeli attacks and fears of further attacks by Hezbollah have also prevented the Iranian-backed group from organizing a national funeral on a scale that reflects Nasrallah's religious status and leadership, according to four sources familiar with the debate within Hezbollah.

“No one can authorize a funeral under these circumstances,” said another Hezbollah source, lamenting the situation where officials and religious leaders could not come out in public to honor the late leader.

Several commanders who were killed last week were discreetly buried on Monday, with plans for a proper religious ceremony at the end of the conflict.

Hezbollah is including the option of obtaining a religious declaration for Nasrallah's temporary burial and holding an official funeral if the situation permits, four Lebanese sources said.

Hezbollah has refused to formally appoint a successor to Nasrallah, perhaps to avoid making his successor an Israeli assassination target, they said.

“Appointing a new Secretary General would be dangerous if Israel kills him afterwards,” said Amin. “The party cannot risk chaos by appointing someone who will see him killed.”