Only one day after the assassination of Iran’s IRGC senior member, two Mossad intelligence officers were killed in a suspicious explosion in UEA.
It was on this Monday that in a huge explosion in United Arab Emirates’ capital Abu Dhabi, two people died and more than 120 others were injured.
The tragedy emanated from a gas leak in a restaurant and the fire damaged several shops and the facades of six buildings.
The restaurant which is located in Khaldiya, a district close to the seafront of the city, was totally destroyed and pictures published by local media showed glass debris and some rubble strewn along the sidewalk.
Thanks to the civil defense firefighters and the police in Abu Dhabi, four buildings close to the restaurant were quickly evacuated.
What makes the story interesting is that the two dead people in the explosion were Israel’s Mossad intelligence officers.
The Abu Dhabi police confirmed in a statement that the two victims of the incident were representatives of Mossad in the United Arab Emirates.
Was Iran involved?
The incident has given rise to the speculations that maybe this seemingly accidental explosion was an act of revenge from Iran.
After all, a day before the Abu Dhabi incident, one of the senior officers of Iran’s IRGC Quds Force, Hassan Sayyad Khodayari, was assassinated in Tehran. The high-profile Iranian official was shot five times while he was in his personal car close to his apartment.
In addition, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said this Sunday that they had arrested several “thugs linked to the intelligence agency of the Zionist regime.” The Guards described Khodayari as a “defender of the sanctuary”, a term used for those who work on behalf of the Islamic republic in Syria or Iraq.
Iran’s state television also noted that Khodayari was “known” in Syria, where Iran has acknowledged deploying “military advisers”.
This act of terror was quickly rebuked by Iranian officials. Iranian Foreign Ministry, for example, described the killing as a “terrorist” operation, noting that those behind it are linked to “global arrogance”, which is a phrase the Iranian authorities use it to refer to Washington and its allies, led by Israel.
Many of Iran’s officials, including the country’s president Ebrahim Raisi, also vowed to take avenge from the agents who committed the assassination.
Raisi said a few hours after the assassination and just ahead of visiting Oman that “I insist on the serious pursuit (of the killers) by security officials, and I have no doubt that the blood of this great martyr will be avenged.”
He also noted that “there is no doubt that the hand of global arrogance can be seen in this crime.”
Since the happening of Iran’s Islamic revolution in Iran back in 1979, relations between Israel and Iran is hostile mostly because of the issue of Palestine.
In recent months, tensions between the two countries have reached high and critical levels as Israel has been increasingly attacking Iran’s facilities and forces in Syria.
It is therefore safe to say that the new wave of omitting each other’s agents is yet a new episode in a series of regional clashes between Israel and Iran.
