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Too bad: CNN quoted a US administration official that Israel is behind the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh; But it declined to reveal details about whether the administration of US President Donald Trump had prior knowledge of the operation.
The source, whose identity was not disclosed by the network, said that Israel usually informs the US administration of information about its objectives and the operations it intends to carry out before implementation. But it declined to confirm whether the Israeli government had done so this time, despite claiming that Fakhrizadeh had long been one of Israel’s targets.
Iranian officials accused Israel of being involved in Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatib Zadeh said on Tuesday that the Iranian response to the assassination would be harsh and that the guilty finger was pointing at Israel.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said there are efforts between the United States and Israel to increase tension in the region before the end of President Trump’s term.
Zarif linked the murder of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and what he described as the urgent visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – about two weeks ago – to the region, the tripartite meeting in Saudi Arabia, and the statements of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. .
“Everyone confirms the existence of this plot, of which the murder of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was part,” he said. Zarif called the alliance of Pompeo, Netanyahu and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia an “alliance of evil”, as he put it.
The frequency of threats to US interests in the region or to US citizens has not increased. Because Iran accused Israel of the murder, the official told CNN; But the Americans believe that the Iranians have not yet avenged the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, and this is what the US intelligence services are monitoring right now, according to the same source.
The US government expects Iran to retaliate for Soleimani’s assassination as the anniversary of his death in Iraq approaches. But the source said Iran was restricted because US President-elect Joe Biden assumed the presidency two weeks after the anniversary date.
The official stressed that Iran’s retaliatory step against the Americans would hamper Biden’s job in terms of lifting sanctions on Tehran and launching the diplomatic process. But if Iran does not respond, its threats will seem hollow to the Iranian interior and to the countries of the region.
The source revealed that additional sanctions will be imposed on Tehran within the next week and the following, as Trump gave Pompeo a blanket mandate to continue to impose a policy of maximum pressure on Tehran for the next two months.
And Israel’s Foreign Ministry has ordered all of its embassies and representatives to raise the security alert level in anticipation of an Iranian response to Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.
Fakhrizadeh was killed last Friday in an operation that the Iranian authorities described as complex again, which lasted about 3 minutes, and there was no human element at the scene of the murder, and he was shot while inspecting his car, with remote controlled automatic weapons , when returning to Tehran.
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