Pistols with silencers and a narrow escape: 8 Iranian agents targeting Israeli tourists and diplomats were arrested in Turkey.
Edited by: TJVNews.com
New details of the Iranian plot to kidnap and murder Israelis in Turkey last month were revealed over the weekend, as was reported by World Israel News.
According to a report Sunday by the Daily Sabah, a Turkish daily, a total of eight Iranian agents were arrested at three different locations last month, when Turkish authorities foiled an Iranian plot to carry out retaliatory attacks on Israelis.
WIN reported that the planned attacks came following the assassination of the deputy commander of an elite unit in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, which Iran blamed on Israel. Khodaei was said to have been planning attacks against Israelis.
All eight of the cell members arrested were part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the report said.
Turkey was already aware of the Iranian cell’s presence in the country prior to the arrests, the report added, possibly after being tipped off by Israel, according to the WIN report.
The Iranian terror cell had planned to murder two different groups of Israeli tourists with shooting attacks in Istanbul, the report said, and to kidnap Israeli diplomats, including the former Israeli consul-general in Istanbul, Yosef Levi Sfari, who now serves as director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s mission in the Caribbean.
The report said that Sfari and one group of the tourists targeted by the Iranian agents were staying at a hotel near Istanbul’s Taksim Square just before the June arrests.
WIN also reported that several Iranian terrorists involved in the plot checked in the very same home, forcing Turkish authorities to quietly evacuate the Israeli visitors to another hotel.
During their stay at the hotel off of Taksim Square, one member of the Israeli tour group broke down crying in the hotel lobby, after learning that Iranian agents were planning a terror attack against the group.
Sunday’s report revealed that three pistols equipped with silencers had been confiscated during the Turkish crackdown, according to the WIN report.
The report also released images taken from closed circuit television systems in the hotel, showing one of the Iranian agents.
Yeshiva World News reported that after receiving information that Iran planned to eliminate Israeli tourists, Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT) in cooperation with Istanbul Police closely monitored the hotels where Israeli tourists were staying. They identified a suspicious person and followed him closely.
The MIT and police teams apprehended the Iranian suspect at the hotel where he was staying on the morning of June 17, as was reported by YWN. Under interrogation, the Iranian agent revealed that a nine-person elimination team sent from Iran will be imminently arriving at the hotel to kill three Israeli women.
YWN also reported that after obtaining all the details from the agent, police teams staked out the hotel and watched as the other agents arrived. YWN reported that one of the Iranian agents found the room where the three Israeli women were staying and took a photo of them with his phone.
Later that day, special police teams raided the hotel and arrested two Iranian agents and seized two rifles and silencers. YWN reported that another three Iranian agents were arrested two days later and another agent was caught nine days later.
The report added that the Iranian agent had asked his handler in Iran: “Is a gun the best tool for the job? Will gunfire in a hotel make a lot of noise?”
His handler answered: “It makes very little noise, like a balloon popping. Don’t worry about it. There won’t be any problems.”
(Sources: WorldIsraelNews.com and YWN.com)
