Fakhrizadeh assassination: Intelligence failure puts Khamenei’s son in spotlight

Nora Bandari

After the name of Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, earlier made headlines as the country’s next leader to succeed his father, his name appeared in the media arena again, but this time accused in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Mullahs’ hardware failure

Iranian political analyst Mohsen Sazegara said during an interview with the Farsi-speaking Voice of America ​​radio station that the assassination of the nuclear scientist near Tehran in late December 2020 was clear evidence of the failure of the Iranian intelligence services, whose performance is supervised by Mojtaba Khamenei and security advisor Ali Asghar Hejazi.

Sazegara added that the assassination was a major defeat for the intelligence agencies in Iran, indicating that the reason for this was the Iranian intelligence’s preoccupation with monitoring the activities of political opponents inside and outside the country.

Some opposition media and social media activists also accused Khamenei and his security apparatus of being behind the assassination of Fakhrizadeh.

Mojtaba has a strong influence within the security institutions, which previously had a conflict that appeared on the scene at the end of 2020.

It should be noted that the intelligence services in Iran are mainly divided between the intelligence service of the Revolutionary Guard, under the authority if the Supreme Leader, and the Ministry of Intelligence, which was established in 1984 and is subject to the President of the Republic.

Deception

Mohamed al-Abadi, a researcher specializing in Iranian affairs, explained to the Reference that Sazegara accusing the Supreme Leader’s son of being responsible for the killing of Fakhrizadeh could be implied for some reason, especially since Mojbata has strong influence, but that does not prevent him from saying that there is an intelligence defect. Obviously, the assassination was not the first, as it was preceded by multiple assassinations of atomic scientists, specifically in 2010.

Abadi said that foreign intelligence agencies’ penetration of the Iranian intelligence services was a clear reason for the existence of a state of conflict between its leadership, which was evident when Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi accused the army of causing Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, at a time when the army accuses the intelligence services of failing to prevent the assassination despite knowing that Fakhrizadeh was a target, which could be a kind of deception by the Iranian army and intelligence.