‘You have 12 hours to escape’: Israel launched covert campaign to intimidate Iranian officials

 

In the hours after Israel launched its first wave of strikes against Iran on June 13, killing top military leaders and nuclear scientists, Israeli intelligence operatives launched a covert campaign to intimidate senior officials with the apparent aim of dividing and destabilizing Tehran’s theocratic regime, according to three people familiar with the operation.*

People working for Israel’s security services who speak Persian, Iran’s primary language, called senior Iranian officials on their cellphones and warned them that they, too, would die unless they ceased supporting the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, according to the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss clandestine operations. One of them estimated that more than 20 Iranians in positions of power were contacted.

The Washington Post obtained an audio recording and transcript of one such call, which took place the same day, June 13, that Israel began its bombardment of Iran.

“I can advise you now, you have 12 hours to escape with your wife and child. Otherwise, you’re on our list right now,” an Israeli intelligence operative told a senior Iranian general close to the country’s rulers, according to the audio recording. The operative then suggested that Israel could train weapons on the general and his family at any moment. “We’re closer to you than your own neck vein. Put this in your head. May God protect you,” he said.

The general, a member of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was told he had 12 hours to make a video disassociating himself from the Iranian government.

 Recording of Israeli Intelligence Officer Speaking with Iranian General