June 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Turkish Police announced this Thursday that they arrested ten members of the Iranian Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard on June 17 who intended to commit armed attacks against Israeli citizens in Istanbul.
The Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) received information about the planning of several kidnappings and assassinations by this group, which included local collaborators, against Israelis in the country’s capital, as well as against a former Israeli ambassador and his wife who were staying in a hotel in the Beyoglu district, as reported by the ‘Hurriyeh’ newspaper.
The arrests, carried out in a joint operation between MIT and the Turkish Police, occurred at The Soul Istanbul hotel, as well as at three rental houses in the aforementioned district. The suspects, who were flown by Israeli intelligence services on a private plane to Tel Aviv, were disguised as students and businessmen.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz reported Monday that Israel, the United States and their regional allies, including Turkey, have formed an “air defense pact”, currently active, which served to thwart several attempted attacks. by Iran on Turkish soil.
Part of this initiative includes cooperation between the parties “against Iranian attempts to harm countries in the region with rockets, cruise missiles and drones.” Gantz explained that these types of measures proved to be useful to frustrate Iranian intentions, according to the newspaper ‘Haaretz’.
This was confirmed by the Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennet, who pointed out that this operation, called the Middle East Air Defense Alliance (MEAD) has thwarted several Iranian attacks and has led to the arrest of several suspected agents on Turkish soil.
Israeli authorities warned their citizens in Turkey in May of the risk that Iran could carry out attacks in response to the death of a Revolutionary Guards colonel who was shot in the country’s capital, Tehran.
The Revolutionary Guard denounced that Colonel Hasán Sayad Jodaei was “target of a terrorist crime against the revolution and elements affiliated with global arrogance”, an argument used in a complaint about the death in January 2020 of General Qasem Soleimani, one of the main architects of the country’s foreign military policy, in a US bombing in Iraq.
The information that emerged identified Colonel Jodai as a “sanctuary defender”, that is, a member of the Quds Force – a branch of the Revolutionary Guard specialized in operations abroad – that fights against the Islamic State jihadist organization in Syria and Iraq.
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