The dying of a senior Iranian navy officer at his dwelling in a Tehran suburb every week in the past has fueled conflicting stories that he fell from a balcony, dedicated suicide or was killed.
The officer, Col. Ali Esmaelzadeh, died a couple of week after one other high-ranking officer in the identical unit, Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, was killed in a drive-by taking pictures in Tehran.
Their deaths come amid a brand new wave of heightened tensions between Iran and Israel, which for years have performed a clandestine conflict of sabotage and focused killings.
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Both officers have been high-ranking members of an elite secret detachment of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Unit 840, which Israeli officers say is tasked with killing foreigners overseas.
Iran blamed Israel for the killing of Khodayee, the deputy commander of the unit, and Israel advised American officers that it was behind the killing, in response to an intelligence official briefed on the communications.
But two senior Israeli protection officers mentioned Friday that Israel didn’t kill Esmaelzadeh. The officers spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk on the document.
The dying of Esmaelzadeh was first reported Thursday by the Saudi-financed, London-based Persian tv channel Iran International. The report, citing nameless sources in Iran, mentioned that Revolutionary Guard officers suspected Esmaelzadeh of spying for Israel and staged his suicide.
The New York Times couldn’t confirm that declare, and Iranian and Israeli officers declined to remark. One official Iranian information outlet mentioned that report was false.
But Iranian information media have provided conflicting stories on Esmaelzadeh’s dying.
Sabreen News, an outlet affiliated with the Quds Forces, reported Thursday that Esmaelzadeh died after falling off the balcony of his dwelling in Karaj, Iran, beneath “suspicious circumstances.” The report mentioned that investigations have been underway.
Iran’s official information company, IRNA, mentioned that Esmaelzadeh had died after “an accident” at his house and denied that he had been killed.
A information platform on the Telegram app affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, Ammariyon, initially reported that the colonel had been assassinated, then deleted the report and mentioned he had dedicated suicide by leaping off the balcony.
The Tasnim information company, additionally affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, reported Friday that Esmaelzadeh had fallen off the balcony as a result of it didn’t have acceptable guard rails and that the coroner’s workplace had confirmed the reason for dying.
There have been different uncommon circumstances surrounding his dying that raised purple flags for some Iranians.
Esmaelzadeh was a high-ranking officer in an elite unit, however Iranian information media didn’t report the dying for greater than every week, till London-based Iran International did.
The Revolutionary Guard haven’t issued a press release or provided public condolences to the household, customary process for a fallen officer.
The funeral was held beneath a media blackout in a distant village in his native province of Hamedan, in response to flyers for the occasion posted on social media — not, as can be customary, at Tehran’s major cemetery with information protection and officers in attendance.
For three days after Esmaelzadeh’s dying, safety guards swarmed his neighborhood in Karaj, in response to an Iranian reporter who was there and requested to not be recognized.
The confusion has led some Iranians, together with conservatives, to query the competing narratives.
“Who had the power to carry out the killing of Colonel Esmaelzadeh and why?” tweeted Attaollah Husseini, a conservative veteran of the armed forces.
“It is impossible for IRGC members, who are on the path of martyrdom all their lives, to commit suicide,” tweeted Abbas Qaidari, a researcher on Iran protection coverage in Toronto. He added that if the Revolutionary Guard have been suspicious of somebody, they’d arrest and interrogate him. “The clues are elsewhere,” he mentioned.
The deaths of the 2 officers of Unit 840 weren’t the one murky deaths in Iran up to now two weeks. On May 25, a drone assault broken a navy web site outdoors Tehran the place Iran develops missile, nuclear and drone expertise and killed a Defense Ministry engineer.
There was no declare of duty for the assault, nevertheless it match a sample of earlier Israeli strikes.
Iranian officers have pledged to take revenge on Israel for the killing of Khodaei final month, prompting Israel to warn its residents in opposition to touring to nations within the area the place Iran might have operatives.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel mentioned in a speech Sunday that Iran had carried out terrorism by way of proxies in opposition to Israel for years however that “the era of immunity for the Iranian regime is over.”
Iran’s deputy overseas minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, shot again Friday, telling a reporter in Norway, “The Zionists may only be able to dream of striking Iran — and if that happens, it will be a dream from which they will never wake up.”
