NYT: IRGC's intelligence chief allegedly detained over "failures" in confronting Israel

After a series of damaging failures, a senior Iranian intelligence official lost his job and a Revolutionary Guards general was said to have been arrested.

For more than a decade, he was a feared presence in Iran, presiding over a vast intelligence apparatus. He crushed domestic dissent and political rivals, and expanded covert operations beyond Iran’s borders to target dissidents and enemies abroad, The New York Times reported on June 29. 

Hossein Taeb, a 59-year-old cleric and chief of intelligence for the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, seemed untouchable. That was until he was abruptly removed from his position last week, a casualty of a relentless campaign by Israel to undermine Iran’s security by targeting its officials and military sites, according to officials and analysts in both countries.

The removal of Mr. Taeb was an acknowledgement by Tehran that confronting the threat from Israel required new leadership and a reset of strategies and protocols, according to Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist former vice president of Iran and cleric who was ousted by conservatives in 2009 but has maintained close ties to top officials.

“The security breaches inside Iran and the vast scope of operations by Israel have really undermined our most powerful intelligence organization,” Mr. Abtahi said by telephone from Tehran. “The strength of our security has always been the bedrock of the Islamic Republic and it has been damaged in the past year.”

Calls to purge Mr. Taeb appeared amid a growing climate of mistrust within the Iranian leadership after a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Ali Nasiri, was secretly arrested on allegations of spying for Israel, according to a person with close ties to top officials in the Revolutionary Guards and another with knowledge of the arrest.

During the past year, Israel has intensified the scope and frequency of its attacks inside Iran, including on the nuclear and military sites that Mr. Taeb’s organization was responsible for protecting.

One of the Israeli officials said that part of the strategy entailed exposing failures by the Revolutionary Guards in their covert war with Israel in the hope that it would create conflict between political leaders and the defence and intelligence establishment.

Israel’s spy network has infiltrated deep into the rank and file of Iran’s security circles, Iranian officials have acknowledged, with Iran’s former minister of intelligence warning last year that officials should fear for their lives, according to Iranian media reports.

Israeli agents have carried out assassinations with remote-controlled robots and in drive-by shootings, flown drones into the sensitive missile and nuclear facilities, and kidnapped and interrogated an agent of the Revolutionary Guards inside Iran. Tehran also suspects that Israel killed two of its scientists in May.

Mr. Taeb was appointed the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence organization in 2009 after nationwide unrest over disputed presidential elections. He had previously served as the chief of the Basij, a plainclothes militia notorious for attacking and sometimes killing protesters. Mr. Taeb, a trusted ally of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, placed opposition leaders under house arrest, dismantled many civil society groups, arrested activists and dual nationals and kidnapped dissidents in neighbouring countries. In at least one incident, one of the dissidents was executed after being forcibly returned to Iran. In a video praising Mr. Taeb released by the Revolutionary Guards this week, those actions were cited among other “accomplishments.”

More recently, Mr. Taeb had been under pressure to root out Israel’s network of spies in Iran and to strike back, according to an adviser to the government and another person affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.

General Nasiri, who was arrested in June, served as a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards’ Protection of Information Unit, tasked with oversight and supervision of the organization’s work.

His arrest, combined with the repeated attacks by Israel, rattled the leadership in Tehran, according to the Iranian officials with knowledge of the situation. Some began quietly calling for Mr. Taeb to resign or be removed, the officials said.

Mr. Taeb requested one more year in his post to rectify the security breaches, the person affiliated with the Guards said.

Then came the plot to target Israelis in Turkey. On June 18, an Israeli intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose the intelligence data, said that Mossad believed Iran was planning attacks against Israeli tourists and citizens. The Israeli Counter-Terrorism Headquarters raised its alert for Turkey to the highest level and told all Israelis in Istanbul to lock themselves in their hotel rooms.

The intelligence official said that Israel had informed Turkey and shared information showing that Mr. Taeb was behind the plot, which it said was in retaliation for the killing in May of Col. Sayad Khodayee, the deputy commander of another covert Revolutionary Guards unit.

Turkey arrested five Iranians and three Turkish nationals suspected of having been involved in the plot, seizing two pistols, two silencers and documents and digital material containing the identities and addresses of individuals said to be on the target list, Turkish news media reported. The Turkish authorities did not respond to requests for comment.

Some conservative lawmakers in Iran have told news outlets that the replacement of Mr. Taeb was nothing out of the ordinary and that his term had simply come to an end. But one tweeted that Mr. Taeb’s removal was one of the most significant in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Mr. Taeb was replaced by Gen. Mohammad Kazemi, the current head of the Revolutionary Guard Protection of Information Unit. Mr. Taeb has been moved to an advisory role to the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards and not to Ayatollah Khamenei, which would have been more typical for one of the ayatollah’s close confidants.