Khamenei reportedly warned Nasrallah about Israeli assassination plot, asked him to flee Lebanon
The assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, last week in Beirut, is widely seen as a major turning point in the decades-long conflict in the region. The 64-year-old, who led Hezbollah for 32 years from 1992, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on September 27 on the militia's headquarters in Beirut.
Khamenei warned Nasrallah days before assassination?
Israel reportedly used 80 tons of ¡°bunker-busting¡± bombs to kill Nasrallah, who was in his underground hideout when the airstrike happened.??
Now a new report has claimed that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had warned Nasrallah about a possible assassination attempt.??
According to Reuters, days before the airstrike, Khamenei had asked him to flee Lebanon and come to Iran, fearing that he could be targeted.??
Khamenei's messenger also killed with Nasrallah??
Khamenei had sent senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, to Nasrallah's hideout in the aftermath of the Hezbollah pager blasts to convey his message.??
Nilforoushan was also killed along with Nasrallah in the airstrike on September 27.??
Khamenei reportedly expressed apprehensions that Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill Nasrallah.??
Israel knew Nasrallah could flee?
Following the assassination of Nasrallah, Israeli defence officials told The New York Times that they were aware of his location for months. The airstrike was reportedly ordered after an Israeli operative who had infiltrated Hezbollah informed them that Nasrallah could get away to a safer location soon.??
Fear of Israeli infiltration in Iranian government?
There are also growing concerns in Iran that Israeli operatives have infiltrated senior government ranks in Tehran. Following the assassination of Nasrallah, Khamenei has reportedly been moved to a secure location inside Iran.??
"It shook Iran to the core. It shows how Iran has been deeply infiltrated: they not only killed Nasrallah, they killed Nilforoushan," Magnus Ranstorp, a Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defence University, told Reuters.
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