Posted on 05/26/22
| News Source: Arutz-7
Security officials in Israel are reportedly livid and demanding explanations from the United States about a leaked New York Times report regarding the recent assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei.
The report cited an intelligence official briefed on the communications said to be a secret channel through which Israel updates the Americans on its operations in the Islamic Republic.
Israeli officials are fearful that the leak will increase Iran's desire to stage a revenge operation.
According to the report, the Israelis told their American counterparts that the killing was meant as a warning to Iran to halt the operations of a covert group within the IRGC’s Quds Force known as Unit 840, tasked with abductions and assassinations of foreigners around the world, including Israeli civilians and officials.
Israeli officials said Khodaei was the deputy commander of the unit, and was involved in planning cross-border plots against foreigners.
They said that he was in charge of the unit’s operations in the Middle East and countries neighboring Iran, and had been involved over the past two years in attempted terrorist attacks against Israelis, Europeans and American civilians and government officials in Columbia, Kenya, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Cyprus.
Iran has never acknowledged the existence of Unit 840.
On Sunday, two motorcyclists opened fire on Khodaei, who was parked in front of his home in Tehran.
Iranian media outlets reported that Khodaei was shot five times, and that his wife found him slumped over in his car.
The IRGC denounced the assassination as a "criminal terrorist act", and claimed that it had earlier on Sunday broken up a "network of thugs linked with the Zionist regime of Israel's intelligence service".
On Monday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed that his country would avenge Khodaei’s death.
Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to Oman, Raisi called the elimination of Khodaei an act of “terrorism”, adding that Iran would take “revenge” for the killing.