Thursday, July 7, 2022

Iran: Regime Fires IRGC Intel Chief, Arrests Senior General on Charges of Spying for Israel - Vijeta Uniyal

by Vijeta Uniyal

A failing regime in total disarray.

 


Amid failed Iranian terrorist plots abroad and the assassination of several operatives linked to its nuclear weapons program, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s military and foreign terrorist arm, appears to be in total disarray.

News reports say that the Iranian regime fired the IRGC’s intelligence chief and arrested a senior IRGC commander on a charge of spying for Israel.

Hossein Taeb, who reportedly masterminded the recently foiled terror plot to kill Israeli nationals in Turkey, has been fired from the post of IRGC’s intelligence chief.

The Times of Israel noted, “Taeb was identified by Hebrew media last week as the Iranian official behind planned attacks on Israelis in Turkey.”

“The reports, citing Israeli security officials, said that Taeb was under intense pressure to carry out an attack, amid growing frustration in Iran over repeated Israeli successes in penetrating Iran’s most secret organizations,” the Israeli news website added.

Taeb’s plot was foiled last week after Israeli intelligence warned the Turkish authorities of an impending terror attack that led to the capture of several Iranian and local operatives in Istanbul.

The other major event that rocked the regime’s security apparatus was the arrest of IRGC Brigadier General Ali Nasiri on charges of spying for Israel, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing Iranian regime sources.

News reports suggested that the general’s arrest could be linked to a major security breach linked to the regime’s missile program. The newspaper Israel Hayom noted Wednesday that “two months before Nasiri’s arrest several dozen employees of the Iranian Defense Ministry, who worked on developing its missile program, were detained on suspicion of leaking classified information to Israel.”

The Islamic Guard oversees the nuclear weapons program and the development of nuclear-capable missiles.

Reuters reported the firing of the IRGC intelligence chief last week:

Iran has dismissed the powerful chief of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit, Hossein Taeb, Iranian state TV said on Thursday, after a series of high-profile incidents Tehran has blamed on its arch-foe Israel.

Iranian state media did not give a reason but state TV said Taeb would become an adviser to the Guards’ Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami. Taeb will be replaced by Mohammad Kazemi, previously head of the Guards’ Intelligence Protection unit. (…)

Taeb, a mid-ranking cleric and a member of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s inner circle, was accused by some Israeli media of being behind an alleged Iranian plot to kill or abduct Israelis vacationing in Turkey. Israel raised its Istanbul travel advisory to the highest alert level on June 13.

The recent assassinations of senior IRGC operatives and scientists linked to its ballistic missile program have shaken the regime’s faith in its massive security apparatus.

The regime’s top brass blames Israel for these incidents. “The security breaches in Iran and the scale of Israeli operations have completely undermined our most powerful intelligence organization,” Iran’s former Vice President Muhammad Ali Abtahi admitted to the NYT.

The IRGC intelligence chief is not the only one fired from his job. A “wide wave of dismissals has hit the Islamic Guard,” and internal rivalries may also drive this purge, the Jerusalem Post reported quoting Arab media.

“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is reportedly cleaning house after a series of intelligence failures, including IRGC officers who have been assassinated in Iran, or died under mysterious circumstances, becoming “martyrs” in the terminology of the Iranian regime,” the Israeli newspaper reported Monday. “The IRGC is now toppling its own in a mini-purge that could be part of rivalries or an internal coup, or simply be the need to get rid of the old and bring in the new,” the daily added.

 

Vijeta Uniyal

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/iran-regime-fires-irgc-intel-chief-arrests-senior-vijeta-uniyal/

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