Bomb smuggled into Tehran guest house months ago killed Hamas leader: report
Ismail Haniyeh (Photo: Reuters)
By Ronen BergmanMark Mazzetti and Farnaz Fassihi
Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas official, was killed on Wednesday with an explosive device secretly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians and a U.S. official, said.
The bomb was hidden in the guesthouse about two months ago, according to five Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse, run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is part of a large complex known as Neshat in an upscale neighborhood in northern Tehran.
Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. The bomb was detonated remotely, the five officials said, after it was confirmed he was in his room at the guesthouse. A bodyguard was also killed in the blast.
The explosion shook the building, shattering some windows and partially collapsing an exterior wall, according to the two Iranian officials, members of the Revolutionary Guards who were briefed on the incident. Such damage was also clearly visible in a photo of the building shared with The New York Times.
Haniyeh, who headed Hamas’s political office in Qatar, stayed at the guesthouse several times when he visited Tehran, the Middle Eastern officials said. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to share sensitive details about the killing.
Iranian officials and Hamas said Wednesday that Israel was responsible for the killing, an assessment also made by several U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The killing threatened to unleash a new wave of violence in the Middle East and upend ongoing negotiations to end the war in Gaza. Haniyeh was a key negotiator in the cease-fire talks.
Israel has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the killing, but Israeli intelligence services briefed the United States and other Western governments on details of the operation immediately afterward, the five Middle Eastern officials said.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Wednesday that the United States had no advance knowledge of the assassination plot.
In the hours after the killing, speculation quickly swirled that Israel had killed Haniyeh with a missile strike, possibly fired from a drone or an aircraft, similar to the way Israel fired a missile at a military base in Isfahan in April.
That missile theory raised questions about how Israel could once again bypass Iranian air defenses and launch such a brazen airstrike in the capital.
It turned out that the assassins were able to exploit a different kind of gap in Iran’s defenses: a lack of security at a supposedly high-security complex, allowing a bomb to be planted and then hidden for weeks before it was finally detonated.
Such a breach, three Iranian officials said, was a catastrophic failure in Iran’s intelligence and security services and a huge embarrassment for the Guard, which uses the compound for retreats, secret meetings and hosting high-profile guests such as Haniyeh.
How the bomb was hidden in the guesthouse remained unclear. Middle Eastern officials said the assassination took months to plan and required extensive surveillance of the compound. The two Iranian officials who described the nature of the assassination said they did not know how or when the explosives were placed in the room.
Israel decided to carry out the assassination outside Qatar, where Haniyeh and other senior members of Hamas’ political leadership live. The Qatari government mediated negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a ceasefire in Gaza.
The deadly explosion Wednesday morning shattered windows and collapsed part of the compound’s wall, photos showed and Iranian officials said. It appeared to cause minimal damage outside the building itself, as a missile likely would have done.
The device exploded around 2 a.m. local time, according to Middle Eastern officials, including the Iranians. Alarmed building workers, the officials said, raced to find the source of the loud noise, which led them to the room where Haniyeh was staying with a bodyguard.
The complex is staffed with a medical team that rushed to the room immediately after the explosion. The team declared Haniyeh dead instantly. The team tried to revive the bodyguard, but he too was dead.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah was staying next door, two Iranian officials said. His room was not seriously damaged, suggesting precise planning in the attack on Haniyeh.
According to five Middle Eastern officials, Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy commander of Hamas in the Gaza Strip who was also in Tehran, arrived at the scene and saw the body of his colleague.
Among those immediately notified, the three Iranian officials said, was Gen. Ismail Ghaani, the commander of the Quds Force, the overseas wing of the Revolutionary Guards, which works closely with Iranian allies in the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah. He alerted Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of the night and woke him up, the officials said.
Four hours after the explosion, the Revolutionary Guards issued a statement saying Haniyeh had been killed. At 7 a.m., Khamenei summoned members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council to his compound for an emergency meeting, where he issued an order to attack Israel in retaliation, the three Iranian officials said.
Tehran was already under heightened security for the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Top government officials, military commanders and dignitaries from 86 countries had gathered in the parliament building in central Tehran for the ceremony.
Haniyeh looked cheerful and triumphant during the swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. He embraced the new president after he delivered his inauguration speech. The two men raised their hands together in the victory sign.
In Iran, the method of the assassination was the subject of rumors and disputes. The Tasnim News Agency, the media outlet for the Guard, reported that witnesses said an object like a rocket had hit the window of Haniyeh’s room and exploded.
But the two Iranian officials, the Guard members who were briefed on the attack, confirmed that the explosion took place in Haniyeh’s room. They said an initial investigation indicated that the explosives had been placed there some time beforehand.
They described the precision and sophistication of the attack as similar to the tactics of the remote-controlled AI robot weapon Israel used to assassinate top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.
Israel’s assassination operations outside the country are carried out primarily by Mossad, the country’s foreign intelligence service. David Barnea, the head of Mossad, said in January that his agency was “obligated” to track down the leaders of Hamas, the group behind the October 7 attacks in Israel.
“It will take time, just like after the Munich massacre, but our hands will catch them wherever they are,” Barnea said, referring to the murder of Israeli athletes by terrorists at the 1972 Olympic Games.
First print: Aug 01, 2024 | 09:10 PM IST