By Pishtaz | 2024-08-02

The killing in Tehran of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 has exposed the shortfalls of the Iranian regime's security and intelligence operations -- and not for the first time, analysts said.

Haniyeh, who was based in Qatar's capital, Doha, had attended the July 30 inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Hours before he was killed, he conferred with Iranian leader Ali Khamenei.

Details of his demise remain sparse.

"That the Iranians were not able to stop this assassination is very embarrassing for Iran," Institute of Research and Studies for the Mediterranean and Middle East deputy president Agnes Levallois told AFP.

The perpetrators clearly had "extremely precise information" about Haniyeh's location and movements, Center of Studies and Research on the Arab World and Mediterranean director Hasni Abidi said.

Weak internal security

Haniyeh was killed despite heavy security around the inauguration, said Behzad, a Mashhad-based college student who gave only his first name out of concern for reprisals.

"Haniyeh was assassinated in a residence belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in northern Tehran, which is considered one of the secure areas," he told Pishtaz.

"The security of Haniyeh, as a political guest of the Iranian government, was the responsibility of Iran's security agencies," he said, describing the incident as "a disgrace and an embarrassment for the government."

The Iranian regime heavily funds its regional proxies but is unable to secure its own capital, said Milad, a Mashhad-based college student who also asked to withhold his last name.

"The Islamic Republic has been financially and militarily supporting Hamas for many years, but it failed to ensure the security of this movement's political leader in its own capital," he told Pishtaz.

"Perhaps no foreign leader will dare to spend the night in Iran anymore."

The regime has faced criticism before for its inability to stop killings on Iranian soil -- notably, the November 2020 killing of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the "father of the Iranian regime's nuclear weapons program."

In August 2020, al-Qaeda second-in-command Abdullah Ahmad Abdullah (aka "Abu Mohammed al-Masri") was killed in Tehran by assassins on a motorcycle, in an operation described as an "embarrassment" to the regime.

Explosions at sensitive military bases in recent years, and incidents such as the theft of sensitive nuclear and missile program documents from a nuclear facility have prompted more criticism of Iranian intelligence capabilities.