RAMALLAH: A report compiled by the Sunday Times claim that Israel assassinated a senior Iranian official in Syria. The official Hassan Shateri, also known as Hessam Khoshnevis, was killed in Syria on February 13. He was a high ranking official of the “Quds Forces" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The group is responsible for the undertaking of international operations. As an engineer, Shateri was also a member of the Iranian Committee for Reconstruction in Lebanon. The committee was formed in 2006 after the remarkably destructive war between Israel and Shiite Hezbollah and it was tasked with the reconstructions of large parts of Lebanon. Because of this, Shateri had extensive ties with Hezbollah. His assassination has long been a top priority for Israel. It was originally reported that he was assassinated while he was en route from Damascus to Beirut but no source was sure of the exact location. New reports show that Shateri was actually the main target in the bombing of a weapons convey travelling from Syria to southern Lebanon, Hezbollah's base of operations. According to the Times of Israel, a senior Israeli official was quoted as saying “Shateri was the real target of the strike and that ‘a weapons convoy to Lebanon is not on its own a good enough reason for Israel to risk its pilots in an attack through a heavily protected air defense zone.' This news comes at a time when Israel and Iran are inching increasingly closer to war. Israel has been operating under a high security alert for over a month and conducting a campaign to warm western powers to the idea of a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear plants. Iran initially condemned both this attack and the reported attack on Damascus saying “an attack on Syria is considered an attack on Iran and on Iran's allies." Israel has not explicitly claimed responsibility for the attack on the convey, but Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has commented on his country's involvement. “I cannot add anything to what you have read in the newspapers about what happened in Syria several days ago... It's another proof that when we say something we mean it. We say that we don't think that it should be allowable to bring advanced weapon systems into Lebanon, the Hezbollah from Syria, when [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad falls." The Israeli government has yet to comment on the report. BN
