PODCAST: Iranian insider likely to be behind the killing of Hamas leader
An Australian-British academic who was falsely imprisoned in Iran under espionage charges said the hit on Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh likely came from an Iranian insider.
An Australian-British academic who was falsely imprisoned in Iran under espionage charges said the hit on Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh likely came from an Iranian insider.
After attending a conference she was invited to in the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2018, Dr. Kylie Moore-Gilbert was arrested by the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of espionage.
Two years later, she was released in exchange for three convicted Iranian terrorists connected to a bomb plot in Bangkok in 2012.
During her time in Iran's notorious Evin prison she learned to speak Farsi and came into contact with high-level IRGC and state officials.
On this week's episode of 'Eye for Iran', Moore- Gilbert opens up about her time in prison and explains why she believes there was likely an Iranian insider behind the suspected Israeli hit, as Iran reels in the wake of Ismail Haniyeh's assassination.
Speaking to host Negar Mojtahedi, Moore-Gilbert also shares what she learned about her captors and what that means about the state of mind of high ranking government officials in this week's episode of 'Eye for Iran.'
You can watch the entire episode on Iran International's YouTubePage or listen to it on Spotify, Apple or Amazon.
It was unclear what had caused Haniyeh’s death. “A projectile,” they said. But how? What type? From where? We didn’t know. We weren’t even sure where his residence was. Some said it was the Saadabad Palace, adding to the creeping anxiety. What if the Palace, a historic landmark, was damaged?
It was just too much. A friend wrote that he had diarrhea from the shock and stress. The fear of war looming –again. Not as intense as the fear we had when Soleimani was killed, but a gut-churning fear nevertheless.
The difference this time was that it wasn’t the first time. We had seen it before: the cries of retaliation, the promise of Harsh Revenge. Only in April, we felt we had to brace for a full-blown war after Israel hit Iran’s consulate in Syria. But the full-blown war never came. Missiles were launched; missiles were intercepted; and life went on as ‘normal’. The utter madness that is our normal in Iran.
So now, many Iranians simply joke away the bellicosity. It’s a defense mechanism that seems to work –until it doesn’t.
"Wars start with smaller clashes., with skirmishes. We all know that.” Masoud is 49 and works as a clerk for an organization half owned by the state. He thinks the younger generation should take the wisdom of his generation more seriously. “One side strikes, the other responds, and this tit-for-tat continues until it reaches a point where it can no longer be stopped. And that would be a dark day for all of us.” Those who remember the eight-year horror of the war with Iraq are often more cautious when discussing the prospect of another one. “I don’t like this regime either, but when I hear talks of an attack overthrowing the ‘system’ but not harming the people, I dread their naivety."
This may be a common line of argument among the older generation. But it’s by no means universal. In fact, some of the more radical voices you get to hear around you are that of the ‘fed-up’ elderly: pensioners like Mahmoud, who have “seen it all”, and cannot help letting out a Persian proverb every other sentence.
“Die once, mourn once,” he says, holding up his index finger to illustrate ‘once’. "We cannot go on forever with this government. It’s been oppressing us and destabilizing the region for years. We have no effective opposition. The only option left is to target their bases and erase them from the face of earth without harming civilians."
Few speak publicly in favor of foreign military intervention. But those few may now cite the “surgical elimination” of Haniyeh –as does Mahmoud– as “evidence” that the Islamic Republic can be “taken out cleanly”, and we should therefore not fear a Syria-fication of Iran. This, as far as I can tell, is still a minority, if not fringe, view. But it also looks as if the ‘targeted assassinations’ –from Soleimani to [Iran’s nuclear mastermind Mohsen] Fakhrizadeh, and now Haniyeh– may have emboldened a few more Iranians to casually call for such actions.
The day after Haniyeh was killed, I overheard a conversation in a grocery store that illustrates this sentiment brilliantly. A middle-aged woman was complaining about the constant rise of prices. "Forty thousand tomans [$0.70] for a 100gr pack of butter?” she exclaimed. “It’s gone up because of the killing [of Haniyeh]. It’ll go higher with the next one,” the grocer said. “The next one is the main one, God willing,” the woman replied. The grocer reminded her that such words could cause her trouble. There was no need to explain further. We all knew who she meant by the ‘main one’, a term used for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The assassination, like many other events, one has to admit, has led to a wave of conspiracy theories. “It's not that they can't kill Iran’s leaders, they don’t want to,” a friend said after I told her about the exchange in the grocery store. “They need the Islamic Republic to be there as the scarecrow of the region."
And then there are those who see the Haniyeh assassination as proof that Israel could have eliminated Hamas with much less civilian casualties if it wanted to. Sohrab, a graduate student in social sciences, is one such voice. “They killed ten of thousands in Gaza under the pretext that Hamas uses civilians as human shields, claiming they had no choice,” he says.. “But we just saw how easily they can hit their target without harming a single civilian. I think the killings in Gaza are more deliberate than they’d like to admit."
The past year or two has been crazy even by Iran’s standards. The current Iranian calendar year is not even past the halfway mark, and we’ve had a president killed in a helicopter crash and a top figure in the Axis of Resistance assassinated in Tehran. After Raisi’s death, the Persian social media turned into a river of jokes. That has not been the case this time. Perhaps because the former was an entirely domestic affair. No one feared a war to break out. This time, the drum beats are constant and loud. “The world will witness our power –and soon enough,” an official just said on the state TV.
Still –and as far as I can tell– few are as scared as they were when Soleimani was killed. But it’s tense. We’re all waiting to see how the Harsh Revenge pans out this time. Most concerned are those with tickets for air travel –and those whose loved ones are supposed to fly in for a long-anticipated, short summer vacation. This shouldn’t be the ‘normal’ life for anyone. It is here, though, and there’s very little we can do about it.
According to these reports, Niknejad and his wife were detained at Berlin airport upon their return from a one-month leave, three weeks after the closure of Islamic centers affiliated with the Islamic Republic across Germany, and were subsequently deported back to Iran.
An Iran International source told our correspondent, Ahmad Samadi, that Niknejad became involved in a confrontation with airport police after realizing he was not permitted to enter Germany.
Previously, in November 2022, Soleiman Mousavifar, the deputy head of the Islamic Center of Hamburg, was expelled for supporting Hezbollah.
Germany shut down the Khamenei-controlled Islamic Center of Hamburg and Blue Mosque in July for its role in serving as a hub of terrorist ideology, antisemitism and anti-democratic threats to the Federal Republic’s constitution order, according to the interior ministry.
When asked the closure, a German interior ministry (BMI) spokesman, Lars Harmsen, told Iran International on Thursday that “In addition to the Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, the BMI has also banned sub-organisations and confiscated their assets. These were the following: the Islamische Akademie Deutschland, the Verein der Förderer einer iranischen-islamischen Moschee in Hamburg, the Zentrum der Islamischen Kultur in Frankfurt (Main), the Islamische Vereinigung Bayern in Munich, and the Islamisches Zentrum Berlin.”
When asked by Iran International if the confiscated assets from Iran’s regime, the Islamic Center of Hamburg and Blue Mosque and other entities, will be used to provide compensation to the Iranian victims of terrorism in Germany, the spokesman said, "Concrete plans for a future usage of the Blue Mosque and other confiscated assets can only be made by the BMI once the ban is final. Therefore, the outcome of the administrative procedure remains to be seen.”
When questioned about future closures of other Iranian regime-linked and controlled centers, mosques and associations the BMI spokesman said, “In principle, the BMI does not comment on possible further bans, regardless of whether there is reason to consider them in individual cases or not…”
Meanwhile, Iranian-German dissidents are urging the German authorities to shutter additional organizations and mosques linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Dr. Kazem Moussavi, the spokesman for the Green Party of Iran in exile in Germany, told Iran International “The closure of the Islamic Center of Hamburg was long overdue and necessary. The closure came too late and is insufficient. Germany’s appeasement policies toward Iran’s regime continues. “
He urged that Germany to shut down the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Berlin and the regime-linked Al-Mustafa Institute in Berlin , as well as the pro-Khamenei Islamic Community of Shiite Communities. Moussavi termed the Iranian regime embassy and other Tehran-linked entities a “security risk” for Germany.
According to Moussavi, the Al-Mustafa Institute’s director was a long-time religious teacher from the banned IAD (Islamic Academy in Germany). The Al-Mustafa Institute in Berlin is part of the Al-Mustafa International University in Iran, where foreign recruits are being ideologically trained.
“The Al-Mustafa International University is the main institution for exporting the regime's ideology to the Islamic world, the West and Germany. It has over a hundred branches worldwide with more than 40,000 students,” said Moussavi.”
He added that the organization of Islamic Community of Shiite communities has more than 150 mosques and the director of the now-defunct Islamic Center of Hamburg is the chairman of the spiritual council of the Islamic Community of Shiite Communities.
Moussavi noted that the largely pro-Iran regime German Körber Foundation is Hamburg protects and supports Seyyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Tehran diplomat who currently is employed by Princeton university. Körber’s cooperation with him legitimizes his past activities, Mousavi argued.
The Iranian-German dissident, Mina Ahadi, who is leading the Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA) campaign in Germany to compel Körber to pull the plug on its relations with Mousavian and Iran’s government, told Iran International Germany should close the Iranian regime’s “embassy and consulate and the Islamic Community of Shiite Communities.”
She added that Germany needs to sanction the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ahadi said there “must put more pressure” on the Körber Foundation.
“Körber must see that when it works together with the Islamic regime, they are making a fascist and anti-women government stronger,” she said.
Ahadi was pleased with the interior minister's decision to shutter the Islamic Center of Hamburg. She worked to secure the center's closure.
In 2023, German Iranians demanded that the German state government of Hesse shut down the pro-Iran regime Center for Islamic Culture in Frankfurt that honored IRGC's Qasem Soleimani.
Iran International reported, in May, on the growing pressure on Körber Foundation to sever ties with Mousavian and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In June, Iranian-Germans protested in front of Körber’s building in Hamburg.
Iranian activists in Germany say that Mousavian is "an extension of the antisemitic regime, acting as its loyal lobbyist in the US through the support of the Körber Foundation in Germany.”
When asked about the scandal-plagued Körber Foundation, the German interior ministry spokesman told Iran International "As a matter of principle, we do not comment on matters of public foundations. The Körber Foundation is not an object of observation of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution." Germany's domestic intelligence agency is called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Multiple Iran International press queries sent to the Körber Foundation and its parent company, Körber AG, were not returned. Körber was founded by the former Nazi, Kurt Adolf Körber (1909-1992), who exploited concentration camp victims to advance the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler’s war goals.
