Iran’s Khamenei warned Nasrallah of Israeli plot to kill him, sources say

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources say.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Hezbollah’s booby-trapped pagers on September 17, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech the Hezbollah secretary general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, tells Reuters.

The messenger, the official says, was a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit by Israeli bombs and was also killed.

Khamenei, who has remained in a secure location inside Iran since Saturday, personally ordered a barrage of around 200 missiles to be fired at Israel on Tuesday, a senior Iranian official says.

Nasrallah’s death has prompted Iranian authorities to thoroughly investigate possible infiltrations within Iran’s own ranks, from the powerful Revolutionary Guards to senior security officials, a second senior Iranian official says. They are especially focused on those who travel abroad or have relatives living outside Iran, the first official said.

Tehran grew suspicious of certain members of the Guards who had been traveling to Lebanon, he says. Concerns were raised when one of these individuals began asking about Nasrallah’s whereabouts, particularly inquiring about how long he would remain in specific locations, the official adds.

The individual has been arrested along with several others, the first official says, after alarm was raised in Iran’s intelligence circles. The suspect’s family had relocated outside Iran, the official says, without identifying the suspect or his relatives.

The second official says the assassination has spread mistrust between Tehran and Hezbollah, and within Hezbollah.

“The trust that held everything together has disappeared,” the official says.

The Supreme Leader “no longer trusts anyone,” says a third source who is close to Iran’s establishment.

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