Israel’s assault on Iran-backed Hezbollah over the past week appears to have spooked the regime in Tehran.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced on Sunday that 12 individuals had been arrested in six of Iran’s provinces on suspicion of collaborating with Israel and engaging in sabotage or “counter-security activities.” The detainees were said to have worked in a “network,” and were briefly described as Israeli “mercenaries and collaborators.”
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The move indicated heightened vigilance in Tehran after the explosion of multiple pagers and walkie-talkie devices in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah members, which is believed to be the work of Israel. Iran is considered the main patron of the Shia militants of Hezbollah.
The arrests also follow a history of previous, suspected Israeli strikes inside Iran, notably the bomb killing in Tehran of the Hamas political boss Ismail Haniyeh.
On Monday, Reuters reported that the Guards has also separately ordered their personnel to stop using pagers and similar devices, while their communication devices and those of allies across the Middle East were to undergo an inspection to detect tinkering.
War trap
As exchange of fire intensified in southern Lebanon, Israel appeared to be shifting the bulk of its punitive measures over the Oct. 7 attacks from Gaza to Lebanon, the seat of Iran’s largest proxy militia. This was fueling fears in Tehran that the Iranian regime could soon become the next target, as the Revolutionary Guards accused Israel of seeking to escape its “strategic conundrum” in Lebanon and Gaza by taking violence into Iranian territory.
They want to drag us into a full-blown war with America.
Mohsen Rezai, a former Guards general and member of the “Expediency Council,” a legislative review body, had warned on Saturday that this was Israel’s aim. “Netanyahu is currently doing Saddam’s work,” he said, referring to the Iraqi dictator who invaded Iran in 1980.
The aim of its provocations, he said, was to “drag us into a full-blown war with America.” He added that Iran would not fall into Israel’s “war trap” but respond with “strength and good sense.”
Khamenei’s son
Likewise Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, now in New York ahead of the 79th UN General Assembly session, said Israeli “warmongering” was destabilizing the Middle East.
Iran would not be provoked into acting rashly, he suggested, even if Israel “would get a response for its crimes.” Another development interpreted as a possible sign of concern in Tehran was in reports on Monday that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a mid-level Shia cleric, was to cancel his theology classes, immediately fueling speculations online that this was for fear of a possible assassination.
The younger Khamenei has been touted, speculatively, as his father’s favored successor, and the London-based Persian broadcaster Iran International cited other interpretations of the move as intended to prepare for an imminent succession. The elder Khamenei is old and said to be ailing, which the broadcaster observed could explain both the canceled classes and Iran’s cautious response to Israel in recent months.
Certainly, the younger Khamenei would need to be alive and well, to become supreme leader.
