Hours after Israel’s first, unexpected wave of attacks against Iran, Israeli intelligence operatives threatened surviving Iranian officials that they too would be killed if they didn’t distance themselves from Iran’s supreme leader. “You have 12 hours to escape with your wife and child. Otherwise, you’re on our list right now. We will hit you, your family, your children, everyone, with the dirt,” an Israeli intelligence operative told one senior Iranian general in a June 13 audio recording obtained by The Washington Post. “We’re closer to you than your own neck vein. Put this in your head.” The caller listed top military officials who had been assassinated in the strikes, which also killed nuclear scientists, and warned the general he would be next if he didn’t create a video saying he no longer supported Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s government. Similar threats were made to an estimated 20 high-ranking officials in an attempt to divide and destabilize the regime. The goal was to make it harder for Khamenei to fill the positions of the officials who had been assassinated. It’s not clear, though, whether there have been any defections among high-ranking members of the military.
Read it at The Washington Post
