After Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh's assassination, Iran arrests dozens in search for suspects: Report

Days after the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran has arrested dozens in search of suspects, according to a report.

In the early hours of Wednesday, Haniyeh was killed in an explosion in a guesthouse in Tehran. He was staying there after attending the swearing-in ceremony of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel for the assassination and have vowed retaliation.

Haniyeh was killed when the security in Iran was at top level owing to Pezeshkian’s swearing-in and while he was staying in a guest house in Tehran under the protection of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Therefore, the assassination marked catastrophic intelligence and security failure that left Iran fuming in anger and humiliation.

Now, Iran has arrested more than two dozen people in the hunt for Haniyeh’s assassination, according to The New York Times.

Among those arrested senior intelligence officers, military officials, and staff at the IRGC-run guesthouse where Haniyeh was killed, as per the newspaper.

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Iran launches probe into Haniyeh’s killing

Iran has launched a nationwide investigation into the killing of Haniyeh, the leader of the terrorist group Hamas and a state guest.

The investigation is being undertaken by the IRGC’s specialised intelligence agency for espionage, according to The Times.

The IRGC investigators are looking for members of the purported assassination squad who planned, aided, and carried out Haniyeh’s killing, as per the paper.

In a statement, the IRGC said “the scope and details of this incident are under investigation and will be announced in due course”.

The paper further said that the investigation is also focussing on Iran’s international and domestic airports where agents are pouring through months of footage from arrival and departure lounges and are examining flight lists. The paper quoted two Iranian officials aware of the developments as saying that the investigators believe members of the Israeli spy agency Mossad’s assassination squad are still in Iran and they are on the mission to arrest them.

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The colossal embarrassment

Haniyeh’s assassination while in the capital for a top state function and under the IRGC’s protection marked a colossal embarrassment for the Iranian regime.

The assassination, which Iran has blamed on Israel and the Western governments have also come to the same conclusion, came hours after Israel killed Hezbollah military chief Faud Shukr in a strike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut. Hezbollah, just like Hamas, is an Iran-backed terrorist group that shares the Iranian commitment to the destruction of the State of Israel.

The two assassinations, particularly that of Haniyeh under the nose of IRGC, sends out a message that Iran can neither protect its allies abroad nor at home.

“The perception that Iran can neither protect its homeland nor its key allies could be fatal for the Iranian regime, because it basically signals to its foes that if they can’t topple the Islamic Republic, they can decapitate it,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran Director for the International Crisis Group, to The Times.

The assassination of Haniyeh’s assassination sent out a message that nothing at all —a totalitarian regime, a police state, bulletproof glass, or state-of-the-art air defences— could protect against the Israeli spies and operatives.