On the night of July 30, 2024, Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Haniyeh had been the chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau since May 2017. He was one of the masterminds of the October 7 Massacre. After the assassination of Mohammed Deif on July 13 in Gaza, Haniyeh became Israel’s “Public Enemy Number One.”
Haniyeh was in Iran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected President, Masoud Pezeshkian. Pezeshkian had replaced Ibrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on May 19. While all eyes are on Israel, the Israeli government has made no public statement regarding their involvement in the assassination. Nevertheless, both Iran and Hamas view Israel as the culprit and have vowed to exact revenge.
Before proceeding, I must categorically state that I have no idea who assassinated Ismail Haniyeh nor any idea how the assassination took place. I will be presenting a largely unsubstantiated theory as to how Haniyeh was killed. This theory is based completely upon resources readily available on the internet. It is nothing more than surmisal.
Haniyeh was staying as a guest of the Iranian government in a guesthouse less than half a mile from the Sa'dabad Palace Complex, which serves as the residence of the Iranian president. While Haniyeh was killed during the night, news of his assassination did not break until the morning. From the outset, a large number of suggestions were made as to how he was killed. When the news first broke, the media, ostensibly getting their information from Iranian sources, announced that a group of assassins broke into Haniyeh’s guesthouse, overpowered and killed his bodyguards, and then shot Haniyeh multiple times while he was in the shower. Simultaneously, rumors had it that the building he was staying in was hit by a missile launched from a drone. These are two different kettles of fish. A shooting will not be visible from outside the guesthouse while a missile attack from a drone will be highly visible. The “Drone Theory” was immediately thrown into the wastebin by most pundits, largely because it is highly implausible that an enemy drone could fly undetected over the Iranian capitol. Further, most drones are powered by a Rotax motor that sounds like a lawn-mower. Even if the drone were undetected by radar, it would have been heard by thousands of people.
Soon after the assassination, pictures of the guesthouse complex began to circulate on the internet. Here is one of those pictures:
A black tarpaulin is covering the exterior walls of Haniyeh’s guesthouse and evidence of an explosion can be clearly seen, disqualifying the “Gunman Hypothesis.” The question remains: What exploded and where did the explosives come from?
In an article published in the New York Times on August 1 and updated on August 3, “seven Middle Eastern officials” asserted that Haniyeh had been killed by a remotely detonated explosive device “covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying.” Moreover, the device had been covertly planted in the guesthouse “approximately two months ago.” The bombers correctly assumed that Haniyeh would attend the inauguration of the new Iranian President and that he would stay in the guesthouse, as he had done several times in the past. According to the Times, the device was detonated using “Artificial Intelligence (AI),” apparently an obligatory ingredient to any operation nowadays. This answers the question how agents could have smuggled a fairly large device (In order to damage a building to the extent shown in the picture would require between ten and twenty pounds of explosives) into a heavily guarded building. What is problematic about the “Smuggled Explosive Hypothesis” is how the killers knew that Haniyeh would be staying specifically in that guesthouse, unless similar explosive devices were smuggled into other guesthouses where Haniyeh might stay. But if there remain similar unexploded devices in Tehran, it is just a matter of time before Iranian Intelligence discovers them. Again, highly unlikely.
I also assert that Haniyeh was assassinated by a missile but not by one launched by a drone. Rather, I suggest that the missile was launched from the ground. Before we proceed, we must understand where Haniyeh’s guesthouse was located. Here is an image from Google Maps of the guesthouse complex:
Comparing the picture to the picture above of Haniyeh’s guesthouse, it is clear that the guesthouse is located on the northwest corner of the building. Now let us zoom out and see what the environs look like. The complex is located in a forested area on the northern end of Tehran. Here is another image from Google Earth that can give us a new perspective:
Haniyeh’s guesthouse is denoted by a red ellipse. The area to the north of the complex is completely barren. It houses a ski resort that is not used in the summer. While canister launched missiles are ejected from their canister by means of an extremely loud ejector motor, the sound would have been masked by the mountains and all that would have been heard in the complex would have been a dull thud. Further, a missile launched from that area would have had a clear line of sight to Haniyeh’s guesthouse, as seen in this photo that appeared on the X feed of Lou Rage (the red arrow points to the complex and his guesthouse is on the far right of the building).
Smuggling a missile into Iran would not have been particularly difficult. The borders between Iran and Azerbaijan to its northwest and to Turkmenistan to its northeast are open and unguarded. There is no border fence or any other kind of delineation. It would have been trivial to smuggle a missile into Iran on the back of a 4X4 pickup truck.
On August 4, just a few hours ago, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced in a televised statement that “a rocket with a seven-kilogram (about 15-pound) warhead was used” to kill Haniyeh. Which rocket was used and who fired it was not divulged. But with what we have shown in this essay, it seems that the truth is finally coming to light.
Good Things,
Ari Sacher
Commentaires