Israel’s Mossad suspected of penetrating Iran’s security intel

Former Iranian officials expressed concerns that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has penetrated the Iranian security and intelligence institutions, BBC reported.

In an interview, Ali Yunesi, a former Iranian intelligence minister and top adviser to former president Rouhani, issued a warning saying, "The Mossad's influence in many parts of the country is so vast that every member of the Iranian leadership should be worried for their lives, for their safety."

A former intelligence officer for the IRGC Quds Force, overseas operations wing of Iran's most elite military unit Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), told BBC that foreign agencies have gathered evidence against a number of Iranian ambassadors and IRGC commanders, including information about relationships with women, which could be used to blackmail the officials to force them to cooperate with foreign spies.

After the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's most prominent nuclear scientist, in November 2020, Iran's intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi claimed that he had warned security forces two months earlier about the assassination plot targeting Fakhrizadeh.

Mentioning that the person who planned the killing was "a member of the armed forces", Alavi said, "We couldn't carry out intelligence operations on the armed forces." He, however, implied that the perpetrator was a member of the IRGC.

Many top-ranking IRGC commanders have been detained inside Tehran's Evin prison security ward, where those accused of spying against Iran are held, sources told BBC.

Their names and ranks, however, are not publicised by the government to avoid tarnishing IRGC's reputation.

Former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani on his last day at office in August last year confirmed that Israel had stolen secret documents of Iran's nuclear programme and showed the evidence to the then US president Donald Trump.

While presenting Iran's nuclear archives in April 2018, then Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's role in Iran's nuclear programme, which he alleged was after developing nuclear weapons, BBC reported.

"Dr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh… remember that name," Netanyahu had said. Two years later, Fakhrizadeh was assassinated.

In the past two decades, several most prominent Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated, alongside multiple sabotages in the country's nuclear and military facilities. The Iranian security forces failed to prevent or capture the assailants and plotters in most cases.

Amos Gilad, a retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) general and former defence ministry official, told BBC that Israel rarely comments about the Mossad's activities and for a good reason.

"I'm against any publicity. If you want to shoot, shoot, don't talk…"

"The Mossad's reputation is to do fantastic operations, allegedly, clandestinely, without publicity," he added.