IRGC Chief Says Thousands Of Rockets Arrayed Against Israel
The commander of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) says the war between Israel and Palestinians is not limited to Gaza and has expanded to the West Bank.
The commander of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) says the war between Israel and Palestinians is not limited to Gaza and has expanded to the West Bank.
In an interview with the official website of Iran’s Supreme Leader published on Friday, Major General Hossein Salami said that “the flames of resistance that were ignited in the occupied territories have never been extinguished and you constantly observe that these struggles continue in all Palestinian territories.”
Praising the attacks by the Palestinians against the Israelis, he claimed many Israelis have been killed in the operations by “resistance groups inside the occupied territories,” in the past several months. He added that the number of Israelis killed is significantly higher than the previous year.
Salami said that the Palestinians have evolved in their military capabilities and can now target any part of Israel, claiming that there is no safe place for Israelis that Palestinians' rockets cannot reach. He also said that “if you add Lebanon's Hezbollah to this equation, you realize that hundreds of thousands of rockets arrayed against the Zionist regime can be fired from the north and west in the Gaza Strip and in the north, from Hezbollah's side.”
“Missiles are great for deterrence and conducting static wars, but the rocket is not the liberator of the land – the infantry must set foot on the ground and liberate the land step by step,” he added.
Earlier in the month, Ali Khamenei praised the Islamic Jihad for “uniting Anti-Israeli Resistance” and “displaying the integrity of the Palestinian nation’s jihad.”
General Javad Ghaffari, the IRGC Qods Force commander who had reportedly been expelled from Syria last November for ‘major breach of Syrian sovereignty’, led the IRGC Intelligence Organization's plots to kill Israelis in Turkey in the past nine months, a former senior IRGC official told Iran International.
After returning from Syria, Ghaffari was appointed as the deputy head of IRGC Intelligence Organization for Special Operations, where he orchestrated a series of failed attacks against Israeli citizens, the Iranian source said.
In the latest case in June, Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) thwarted a planned attack against Israeli diplomats and tourists in Istanbul. MIT said that it detained eight suspects allegedly working for an Iranian intelligence cell.
Ghaffari was the third commander of the Iranian forces in Syria since 2011 when Iran began its large-scale intervention in Syria's civil war. He started his career in Syria as one of the commanders at the Iranian forces' headquarters in Damascus and was later appointed as the commander of the forces in Aleppo - where he became known as the 'Butcher of Aleppo'.
There, he led Iranian forces as well as their Lebanese Hezbollah proxies and Afghan mercenaries, the Fatemiyoun, until he was allegedly ousted by Assad.
Ghaffari was expelled from Syria as he was "accused of ‘major breach of Syrian sovereignty’ after attacking US forces, and deploying Iranian weapons to unapproved places," the Times of Israel quoted Saudi sources as saying.
According to the Times, it was reportedly Syria that shunned Ghaffari for "nearly starting a war with Israel," and "almost causing an unwanted regional war."
Back-to-back failures
Ghaffari's expulsion from Syria not only did not result in his retirement, but also won him a senior position at the IRGC Intelligence Organization (SAS).
His failures at SAS outraged many IRGC officials, and finally prompted Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to sack the organization's controversial, but powerful chief Hossein Ta'eb, who had run SAS for 13 years.
However, Ghaffari was not the first or only official responsible for SAS operations overseas. His predecessor Reza Seraj had also been sacked for a failed plot to kill Israelis in Cyprus.
Another key figure in the unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Israelis in Turkey was Rouhollah Bazghandi, the deputy head of the SAS counterintelligence (Unit 1500), the former senior IRGC official told Iran International.
Bazghandi was in charge of the June operation to assassinate former Israeli Consul General in Istanbul, Yosef Levi Sfari, as well as three Israeli women tourists.
By using amateur agents to carry out the attacks against Israeli targets in Istanbul, Bazghandi dealt a heavy blow to IRGC Intelligence Organization, the source told Iran International.
He was also in charge of thwarting plots to assassinate Iran's security officials inside Iran; however, Hossein Ta'eb used him for his extraterritorial operations, and apparently his absence, among other reasons, turned Iran into a safe haven for Israeli Mossad agents who launched several sabotage operations and assassinations, killing Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, other key figures and scientists in Iran's drone, missile and nuclear program.
On May 22, two assailants on a motorbike fired several bullets at Col. Sayyad-Khodaei outside his home in broad daylight, prompting Iranian officials to accuse Israel of organizing the attack, and vowed revenge.
This incident was followed by more mysterious deaths of IRGC officers and weapons experts, which were again blamed on Israel that has not denied responsibility as it is engaged in a secret war with the Islamic Republic.
