An explosive device hidden in a heavily guarded complex where Ismail Haniyeh was known to stay in Iran was what killed him, according to a Times investigation.
Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated on Wednesday by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official.
The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.
Mr. Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. The bomb was detonated remotely, the five officials said, once it was confirmed that he was inside his room at the guesthouse. The blast also killed a bodyguard.
TBH don’t know which one would have been more embarressing for the Iranians. That the air defenses would have let an airstrike in Tehran or that they let the Israelis plant a bomb in a secured compound. Honestly I think this is worse for them.
And they didn’t find it in two months! No security sweeps?
They didn’t think to check the bomb-shaped clock on the table. Too obvious.
Nah, this is definitely worse. As much as they try Iranians are never going to have anything that resembles western technology, they will definitely have to pay the price for that if/when they try anything. This kinda internal betrayal though, this reveals them as the clowns they are selling out one of their most important allies to their nemesis.
I saw a military pundit say the opposite: this is planted by Iran for 2 reasons:
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create paranoia to help crack down on society (e.g. “suspicious maids”)
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dismiss the idea that Israel is able to find out where and when to hit a target to the minute with extreme precision (through a window, which would look like a bomb exploded from the inside instead of just a maid planting a bomb) and possibly taking an f35-style stealth aircraft into Iranian airspace close to Tehran undetected.
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This is some Sam Fisher Splinter Cell infiltration shit that you’d usually expect to see in video games or Hollywood, not in real life.
Based some of the revealed history of some of these agencies, I feel like Hollywood is both closer and much further off than the reality of what happens. Closer in that history is stranger then fiction, and much further off in that these agencies are not monolithic decision makers and the hydraheaded nature of a political/bureaucracy makes for some strange decision.
I’m quite curious about spycraft and special operations and you’re right. There are some real-life ops that a movie audience would dismiss as hard to believe or downright phony.
And Israel is way in the top when it comes to insane military, special operations, spy, and assassination WTFs.
Good observation. I agree.
Almost certainly not Splinter Cell, creep around in the dark style. It was probably someone who was invited to stay there that planted it, when their guard was lower, or maybe someone disguised as workers doing electrical repairs or something. You can get almost anywhere with a high-vis vest and confidence. You can’t by sneaking around in the dark.
They probably knocked out a guard and then wore their clothes to get in the building. Because everybody identifies each other according to clothing and not facial features they were able to get in.
Then if the Intruder was caught they could always have thrown their briefcase very slowly across the room.
I have a feeling it was more Paul Blart then Sam Fisher. If they riding find a bomb in 2 months then they aren’t finding it on you.
It could have been an opportunity like they had renovations in the building, an agent disguised as a worker planted it inside the wall or something. Or like a plot on a Sopranos episode, feds snuck into Tony’s house and swapped a lamp with an exact replica with a listening device inside. Definite security failure for a secure compound though.
A safe house with a high value target not checking for two months is crap security.
I believe there are two possibilities: either an Israeli agent snuck inside the house and planted the bomb or they were able to ‘turn’ someone who has access to the house and convince them to plant the bomb. Either way, it doesn’t look good for the IRGC. Heads will roll, perhaps literally.
The assassination threatened to unleash another wave of violence in the Middle East and upend the ongoing negotiations to end the war in Gaza. Mr. Haniyeh had been a top negotiator in the cease-fire talks.
The other Palestinian negotiators might just possibly take Israel blowing up the guy they’re talking to as a sign that Israel is not negotiating in altogether good faith.
Well they’re not negotiating with people who aren’t terrorists…I don’t think you understand what negotiations are or why they’re necessary.
The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound
A bomb placed two months ago? Geeze, not protected very well by these guys now was it.
I wonder how many more ‘bombs’ are sitting elsewhere waiting to go off.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was done by a traitor
Netanyahu really doesn’t want these negotiations to come through, does he? How can he go to the hostage families and tell them he’s gonna get their relatives back when he bombs the shit out of the country they’re hidden in, has blown up and wanted to funnel sea water into the tunnels where they are most likely held (from an outsiders perspective) and now basically shot someone in the face across the negotiating table?
Tell me how that makes sense.
That’s some Hitman shit right there.
Certainly better than blowing up 100 innocent people to kill one guy who might not have been there anyway.
If this is true, why would they release the information about how they did it?
Yes there is some psychological warfare effect that will make hamas people feel scared for a short amount of time, but it will also make them change their security procedures to help prevent this method from working in the future. Their forensics were going to determine that it was a bomb, but they wouldn’t have been able to tell that the bomb was planted so far ahead of time.
I’m not convinced this story is true. I’m not saying it’s false, but i am saying they had no incentive to tell the truth, and in fact they have incentive to lie so that hamas puts work into securing against the wrong method.
What makes you so confident it’s Israeli officials leaking the info? The plot would be pretty easy to unravel after the fact by anyone involved in the investigation
Explain to me how they could easily tell it was a bomb that was placed there 2 months ago. And that it was detonated remotely. And all the other details.
Probably security camera footage and some logic with when the bomb detonated.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all knowing Israel successfully pulled this off because they’ve done similar things before.
The funny part is that it was probably just a sellout that they bought with some chump change to smuggle the device in, and not some super secret undercover spy.
“I don’t know” is somewhat different than “I know”, you know…
I have no idea what you’re trying to say
“Explain to me how” is not a statement that should prove that any point, it’s just a pretense for theories and doubt
I think it depends greatly on how the bomb was planted. Suppose, for example, the building was undergoing some renovations and the bomb was hidden inside a wall that had been legitimately opened up as part of the renovations. The debris would show the bomb was in the wall, and they could probably easily pinpoint when during the renovations that wall was worked on.
the bomb that almost got Margaret Thatcher had been placed nearly a month earlier. one of the ones that almost got Hitler had been placed two days prior
Paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/i4IPq
Imagine the outrage if the Iranians returned the favor.
Israel needs to knock this shit off before they start something they can’t finish.
Imagine the outrage if Hamas staged a raid on Israeli civilians or Hezbollah rocketed a Druze soccer game.
Sure, we can go back and tally up all the atrocities on each side. Where would that get us exactly?
My point is that the Israeli government has done nothing but escalate and escalate. They have no interest in peace, only continued bloodshed and theft of land. That is not a viable tactic in the long term.
Worked for plenty of countries before though
Imagine the outrage if Hamas staged a raid on Israeli civilians
You hardly have to imagine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–2019_Gaza_border_protests
The IDF responded by blowing off the kneecaps of entire families of raiders. Adult male raiders, raider wives, and raider children were stopped dead in their tracks.
Obviously, this is the only sane and rational response to such a vicious terrorist act. I’ll be excited to hear Lemmy applaud the response. And the response to the response. And on and on and on, forever.
Netanyahu wants Iran to return the favor. He needs a forever war to maintain his dictatorial war powers.
I keep recommending people read this article. It’s from his former best friend and he lays it all out: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-798324
Fantastic. Fuck that guy. How many millions of Palestinians did he condemn to die with no hope or prosperity? Not any more.
Removed by mod
Removed, civility.
Fair enough.
Imagine others countries too, it means Mossad may have put bombs in various complex around the world, in some Europe countries? in some south American countries? about everywhere in the world, there is maybe bombs hidden under floor or in wall or whatever, waiting for the right moment.
I guess they also had mics everywhere in this complex.
They did something devious and crafty, but in a country which has had major security issues for years.
Let’s not suggest they have superpowers because of it.
Also mics that are recording are super easy to sweep even incompetent intelligence operations will find them because all you need is a beep wand type apparatus that can check for electric signals where there shouldn’t be any, bombs however are a lot harder to find because that would require having well trained dogs on multiple types of exploaives that don’t do anything other than just sniffing explosives. These dogs take years of discipline that requires competence by definition.
Does this constitute Israeli terrorism? And will the international community move to condemn and sanction these acts?
Nope, I think this falls under the ‘war’ flavor, not terrorism.
In that case, I guess killing another country’s prime minister and chief diplomat is fine.
Or to quote Nixon, it’s not a crime when the president does it.
Even though the killing of the diplomat may have been legal, conducting an attack on the territory of a country not taking part in the conflict is typically not.
Countries usually don’t like it when you conduct assassinations or acts of war on their territory.
Yep, don’t disagree. But to some extent, Isreal already believes that it is in a war with Iran.
So blowing up political leaders on the territory of a third party is perfectly fine? Let’s say, if Russia cruise missile strikes Zelensky while he’s on a visit in Paris, how do you think NATO will respond?
This is applying a double standard
oh wow. I did not even think like that. So its definatively and act of war in iran territory by israel!
Both Hezbollah and Iran are both at war with Israel and have vowed to destroy Israel many, many times.
I did not realize it was formally declared. Is it like korea then?
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