Iran’s president was injured in an Israeli air strike targeting a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council, Tehran has revealed.
Masoud Pezeshkian was wounded in the leg and forced to escape through an emergency hatch after Israel struck the meeting in Tehran with six missiles during June’s 12-day war.
The revelation, made by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) affiliated Fars news agency, confirms the claims made by Mr Pezeshkian during a recent interview that Israel tried to assassinate him.
According to Fars, Mr Pezeshkian, 70, sustained a leg injury after the strike on June 16 where others in attendance included parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and judiciary chief Mohseni Ejei.
The agency said the attack bore similarities to the strike that targeted the head of Iran’s biggest regional proxy, Hezbollah, last year, which succeeded in killing long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut.
“The attack occurred before noon on Monday, June 16, while a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council was being held with the heads of the three branches of government and other senior officials in the lower floors of a building in western Tehran,” the report said.
“The attackers targeted the building’s entrances and exits by firing six bombs or missiles to block escape routes and cut off air flow.”
Fars also reported that others also had been injured in the attack. It stated that “some officials, including the president, suffered minor injuries to their legs while leaving”, and added that they escaped through “an emergency hatch that had been planned in advance”.
“After the explosions, the electricity on the floor was cut off,” it added.
Investigations are now under way to find a possible insider because of the precise nature of the attack.
Iran has arrested more than 700 people in the wake of the war on charges of collaborating with Israel, and has attempted to push through a new emergency spy law that aims to impose harsher penalties, including the death penalty.
Though Fars did not detail the location of the strike, opposition outlet Iran International reported an Israeli air strike against an area near Shahrak-e Gharb in western Tehran on June 16.
Mohsen Rezaei, an IRGC general, also told state TV that Israel “struck six points at the location where the Supreme National Security Council was meeting, but not the slightest harm was done to any of its members”.
However, in an interview with political commentator Tucker Carlson, Mr Pezeshkian accused Israel of trying to assassinate him, though had not admitted to having being injured. “They did try [to assassinate me], yes…They acted accordingly, but they failed,” he said.
The interview drew massive criticism from MPs in Iran, with 24 joining together in a public letter accusing the president of undermining national security.
They said his openness to renewed negotiations with the United States in spite of the American strikes on three key nuclear facilities, and his willingness to co-operate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has since been expelled from the country, showed weakness.
“From a national security standpoint, such messaging risks inviting further aggression,” the MPs wrote.
“If before June 12 there were diverse views on resisting American overreach, this war generated rare unity around the necessity of confronting the United States and its proxy, the Zionist regime,” they added.
Source: The Telegraph
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