Major general Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force
The former head of Israel’s military intelligence has revealed the involvement of his department in the murder of the general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qassem Soleimani in 2020. This is the first official confirmation of the Israel’s involvement in the assassination.
The revelation was made by the former head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Tamir Hayman in his interview with Malam magazine published by the Israeli Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center. Maj.-Gen.
“Soleimani’s assassination is an achievement, since our main enemy, in my eyes, are the Iranians,” claimed Maj.-Gen. Tamir Hayman.
Hyman did not disclose any details of the high-profile operation aimed to eliminate Soleimani.
In the interview, Hayman said that “we thwarted a lot of ways they tried to smuggle weapons and money, and the headline of all of this is stopping the Iranians from entrenching themselves in Syria.”
However, the Israeli military intelligence is known to have tracked the mobile phone numbers used by the Iranian general before he was killed in the U.S. drone attack. Earlier, the US intelligence services claimed that they managed to determine that Soleimani changed his number three times in six hours on his way from Damascus to Baghdad on the day of the attack.
Maj.-Gen. Tamir Hayman
Explaining the reasons for Tel Aviv’s participation in the US special operation, Hyman claimed that he considers Iran the main threat to Israel and has resisted Tehran’s attempts to take root in Syria for many years.
Tamir Hayman finished his term in the Israeli intelligence services in October. He claimed that during his rule of the intelligence service, “two significant and important assassinations can be noted in his term.”
Baha abu al-Ata
The other victim was the Islamic Jihad leader Baha abu al-Ata, who was killed in the Gaza Strip in 2019 during the Operation Black Belt.
The revealing of the Israel’s participation in the assassination was only a matter of time. The close cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries was not a secret. The first reports that Israel had shared three of Soleimani’s cellphone numbers with the US hours before the drone strike came in May. However, IDF officials have avoided to comment on their role in the operation.
Today’s official revelation is yet another confirmation of the terrorist warfare used by the Israeli top officials in the country’s foreign policy.
