Iran's intelligence community fearful of Mossad - opinion

Israel has not claimed responsibility for eliminating Ismail Haniyeh. Nevertheless, the Mossad’s presence continues to rattle the Islamic Republic’s intelligence community. Despite their inability to counter Mossad and Israel effectively, rumors still circulate. For the mullahs, the focus remains solely on propaganda; they boast of defeating Mossad in their delusional state, though reality paints a different picture.

If we momentarily embrace the delusions of Iran’s regime, we could appreciate the scope of what Mossad has allegedly achieved – one of the most significant counter-terrorism feats worldwide. Governed by Shi’ite mullahs, a bastion of Islamic terrorism sponsorship, Iran’s leaders have orchestrated a grand spectacle for themselves.

From this viewpoint, Mossad purportedly eliminated a pivotal figure within Tehran’s terrorist network. This occurred in a highly secured zone, fortified by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS).

Modern operations heavily rely on telecommunications technology. The day before Masoud Pezeshkian’s expected presidency, Mossad’s reputed precision strike achieved three objectives: it removed a key Hamas strategist, sowed disarray among Iranian officials, and again embarrassed Iranian intelligence.

But how do we confront these delusional mullahs with the fact that Mossad has not officially accepted responsibility?

FOR OVER half a century, SAVAK (the secret police during the shah’s era), alongside Mossad and the CIA executed numerous joint operations that significantly unnerved the Soviet Union and the KGB. History did not anticipate that, 45 years later, Tehran’s Shi’ite caliphate regime would ignore its own populace, brutally suppress protesters, and dream daily of annihilating Israel and the US.

In today’s Middle East, an irrational mullah – reminiscent of historical Islamic caliphate rulers from the Rashidun, Abbasid, Umayyad, Fatimid, Ottoman, ISIS, and beyond – has declared himself Amir al-Muminin (commander of the faithful) and the global ruler of Muslims. 

His primary focus is promoting Shi’ism, fostering the Shia Crescent, and nurturing a perilous transnational terrorist network across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Under his direction, these non-state actors conglomerate under the so-called Axis of Islamic Resistance.

This malevolent coalition has ravaged four Middle Eastern capitals, with the Quds Force and the MOIS perpetrating atrocities in these locations. They even operate terrorism training camps within Iran. These malevolent forces bring nothing but destruction, darkness, and poverty wherever they go, squandering Iran’s resources in their quest to build a Shi’ite empire and confront Saudi Arabia.

For Tehran’s authorities, not even the security and stability of the Persian Gulf are priorities. They continue, under the guise of defending Shi’ites, to incite chaos, deception, infiltration, and coups from Bahrain to Morocco. It is no longer surprising that on July 31, 1987, pilgrims came armed with intentions to bomb the Kaaba – an international scandal that embarrassed Khomeini.

For example, the Islamic Republic collaborates with the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, and Turkey to support Hamas terrorists against Israel. Concurrently, they back the PKK terrorist organization to ensure that Turkey does not overshadow Iran’s role, or influence in this complex geopolitical game, or prevent Syria’s collapse. They also engage with the Barzani tribe to distract Turkey. 

Alongside the PKK and Hezbollah, they facilitate drug trafficking, and with the Barzanis, they conduct money laundering. Moreover, they maintain collaborations with various Kurdish parties and organizations, regardless of their political stance.

Their sinister influence extends into Africa, where they recruit, establish terrorist networks, and operate from Sudan to other regions. The Islamic Republic also arms terrorist groups in Somalia, with its ties to al-Shabaab growing undeniably.

Parts of the Quds Force and the MOIS also collaborate with transnational criminal organizations in Latin America, posing a threat to the security of the northern hemisphere. Moreover, they maintain terrorist and propaganda networks within America itself. Under the watchful eyes of the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, and FBI, agents of the Islamic Republic poison and contaminate the media, hold faculty positions in various universities, shamelessly spread falsehoods, propagate lies, speak at think tanks with financial backing, organize marches within American universities, and collaborate with assassins from covert terrorist networks, operating sleeper cells.

The world's indifference 

IT APPEARS that the world has become indifferent to being held hostage by the destructive ideology of Khomeinism. If no action is taken, the consequences will only grow increasingly perilous. Regrettably, the Democrats appear complicit in this alignment with the regime.

The global community has not taken serious action against the transnational terrorism network of the mullahs in Iran. It was the CIA  that helped eliminate Osama bin Laden, killed the second-in-command of al-Qaeda in Tehran on August 7, 2020, as well as the most dangerous terrorist of the Quds Force – Qasem Soleimani, who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and was a key figure in activating the Shia Crescent and the Islamic Republic’s transnational terrorism network.

While the American intelligence community has made significant efforts, it’s clear that the Mossad has been effective in both neutralizing terrorists and undermining the mullahs’ regime. The Mossad has targeted key IRGC figures when they posed threats. Over the past 45 years, the Mossad has periodically been the main force challenging Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his outlaw regime.

For instance, while praying over the bodies of Haniyeh and his bodyguard, Khamenei looked to the sky out of fear, as if he were anticipating a Mossad drone or an Israeli missile before it struck. Cowardly, the Middle Eastern inept and spineless dictator is distrustful and suspicious of everyone around him.

Khamenei occasionally becomes intoxicated by the crimes of the Revolutionary Guards, security organizations, and his own terrorism network, and issues orders for terrorist operations – or as they call it, Islamic jihad. When he rashly ordered missile launches toward Israel, he fled to Mashhad at night to escape the Mossad’s reach. In the real world, what value or credibility does a fatwa from such a criminal have?

In actuality, the fear of Israel and the Mossad has driven the regime’s propaganda machine to the point of delirium. The situation is so dire and absurd that even former ministers of intelligence are constructing sentences with the words CIA and Mossad. 

The Mossad probably views its cat-and-mouse game with Khamenei as a form of entertainment, but as long as this dictator lives in Iran, the saga of war, blood, bombs, and terror in the Middle East persists. It is hoped that with support for “regime change” in Iran, this story will come to an end.

Just as Mossad never forgot Haniyeh’s prayer of blessing at a hotel in Turkey during the broadcast of Hamas’s brutality against Israel on October 7, 2023, it will never forget the command center of the IRGC thugs – Hossein Salami, Ali Baqeri, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, and others – who ordered the launch of supersonic cruise missiles and kamikaze drones at Israel.

Still, the Mossad’s operational prowess has compelled the Islamic Republic to consider replacing its main pieces and reorganizing the intelligence community’s chessboard with the naive notion that it might block the Mossad’s infiltration. However, the Mossad has already read the play of the game.

The writer is a counterterrorism analyst and Middle East studies researcher based in Washington, with a particular focus on Iran and ethnic conflicts in the region. His new book is The Black Shabbat, published in the US. You can follow him on X @EQfard and at erfanfard.com.