The Wall Street Journal: The secret Mossad plan to topple the regime in Iran
The Wall Street Journal has revealed the details of an intensive Israeli intelligence and military campaign aimed at eliminating the leaders of the Iranian regime and its security apparatus one by one, in an attempt to undermine Tehran’s authority and push it towards collapse from within.
The recent assassination of two senior Iranian officials marked a milestone in this campaign, as Israeli intelligence was able to locate Ali Larijani, the secretary-general of Iran’s National Security Council, and assassinate him with a missile strike, just days after his public appearance on the streets of the capital, Tehran.
On the same night, according to the newspaper, an Israeli raid targeted Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani, killing him instantly.
The Wall Street Journal reported that it had seen detailed documents and lists of targets that show a massive effort to weaken Iran’s internal control structure.
Israel has so far fired about 10,000 shells targeting thousands of sites, including more than 2,200 targets linked to the Revolutionary Guards, Basij and Internal Security Forces.
According to Israeli and US officials who spoke to the newspaper, the strategy is aimed at driving security forces out of their fortified bases into the open, then chasing them at makeshift gathering points, to bunkers under bridges and at sports complexes.
Documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal revealed that one of the deadliest attacks occurred during the first week of the war, when Israeli warplanes bombed Azadi Sports Stadium and other compounds, after intelligence learned of an alternative plan for security forces to gather there.
The strikes killed hundreds of security personnel and soldiers, the WSJ newspaper said.
The WSJ newspaper reported that Mossad operatives began making direct phone calls to Iranian military and security commanders to threaten them by name.
The WSJ reported a call it said it had seen between a high-ranking Iranian officer and a Mossad agent, adding that the Mossad agent told the officers: “We know everything about you, your name is on our blacklist, we have all the information about you, and I called you to warn you in advance that you must stand by your people, and if you don’t, your fate will be the same as that of your leader, can you hear me?”
The WSJ claimed that the Iranian officer responded to the Mossad agent, saying, “My brother, I swear by the Quran that I am not your enemy, I am already dead, please just come and help us”.
Despite this enormous pressure, the newspaper quoted a political analyst warning that overthrowing a government from the air is difficult, if not impossible.
Varzin Nadimi, a researcher at The Washington Institute, told the newspaper that if the regime survives, it could emerge from the crisis bolder and more dangerous.
The Wall Street Journal concluded by noting that Israel’s security establishment is betting that the deteriorating economy and public anger are putting the regime on an irreversible path to collapse, but that the ultimate responsibility for changing the situation rests with the Iranian people themselves.
