In Israel's sights are Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Tehran's nuclear programme.
PARIS, France: From hitjobs to sabotage and cyber attacks, Israel has either been blamed for or taken responsibility for a range of attacks against Iran.
Israel has its sights set on Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Tehran’s nuclear programme.
While Israel launched a series of air strikes on Saturday which it said were aimed at Iran’s military infrastructure, AFP takes a look at other attacks carried out in the past few years.
Revolutionary Guard
Israel has been accused of targeting top members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, mostly involved in subversive efforts carried out outside their country’s borders.
The recent killings include a general who was killed along with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli attack on a Beirut suburb on September 27.
Seven members of the Revolutionary Guards, including two top-ranking ones, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate building in Damascus on April 1, 2024, according to Tehran.
The recent killings are the latest in a long list.
In December 2023, a commander was killed in Syria in an attack blamed on Israel, following the killing of a colonel in Syria a year earlier.
In May 2022, Sayyed Khodaei, a member of the Quds Force, the unit in charge of the Guards’ external operations, was shot by two motorcyclists while walking to his home in Tehran. Israel told the United States it was responsible for the attack, according to the New York Times.
General Hassan Moghadam, who was responsible for armament programs, died in an explosion at an ammunition depot near Tehran in November 2011, an operation blamed on the United States and Israel.
Iran’s nuclear program
Israel has also been accused of carrying out targeted killings of several high-ranking Iranian physicists, often linked to Tehran’s nuclear program.
These include nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in November 2020 and was introduced as deputy defense minister after his death.
Scientists Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who was working at the Natanz nuclear site, and Majid Shahriari, founder of Iran’s Nuclear Society, as well as particle physics professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi were others killed in recent years.
Israel has also been accused of sabotaging Iranian nuclear installations, mainly the Natanz complex south of Tehran.
According to Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, a small explosion occurred at the site on April 11, 2021.
The New York Times reported that Israel played a role in the “strong explosion” that apparently destroyed the internal electrical system supplying uranium enrichment centrifuges.
Another “accident” also occurred at Natanz in July 2020, which Iran’s nuclear agency described as “sabotage.”
In September 2010, a cyberattack using the Stuxnet virus destroyed enrichment centrifuges at Natanz.
Iran blamed Israel and the United States, while information security experts also pointed the finger at Washington.
Iran’s allies
Iran’s allies have also found that Tehran is not always a safe haven.
Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital on July 31 in an attack blamed on Israel. He was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iranian petrol
In March 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing US and Middle East officials, that Israel had targeted at least a dozen ships bound for Syria in 2019 and in most cases transporting Iranian petrol.
The report said Israel had planted underwater mines in the attacks.
As of 2021, Israel and Iran have accused each other of naval sabotages.
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