Iranian hitmen planned ‘two-stage attack’ on Israelis

ISTANBUL

Members of an Iranian team, caught on June 17 in Istanbul, were going to implement a two-stage plan to attack and kidnap Israeli diplomats and tourists, the daily Milliyet has reported.

According to a report by the daily on June 30, the Iranian hitmen, at first, were going to eye an attack on a former Israeli consulate Yosef L.S. and his wife. The group was then going to attack a group of Israeli tourists in [the district of] Beyoğlu.

The five hitmen were planning successive damage to Israel on two different occasions, the daily hinted.

Two weeks ago, Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) busted the Iranian intelligence service SAVAMA and caught five hitmen and five guides helping them.

It was stated that members of the intelligence service were undercover as students and the Revolutionary Guards as businesspeople and tourists for the attack which was caught in the planning stage.

Five suspects were transferred to court on June 29 after interrogations that lasted a fortnight and four of them were arrested on charges of “political and military espionage.”

The other was freed by judicial control decision.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid had urged citizens in Türkiye to leave “as soon as possible” over threats that Iranian operatives are actively planning to kill or abduct Israelis in Istanbul.

The stark warning had come amid the latest surge in tensions between bitter rivals Iran and Israel, with Tehran blaming the Jewish state for a series of attacks on its nuclear and military infrastructure in Iran and also inside Syria.

The killing of Colonel Sayyad Khodai is the most high-profile murder inside Iran since the November 2020 killing of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.