Mossad is calling senior Iranian commanders and pressuring them to stand aside

"Hello, how are you? Is this Commander Fathi Zadeh?" the Israeli Mossad agent asks at the start of the phone call.

"Who are you? Hello?" the senior Iranian police officer responds.

"Are you listening?" the Israeli intelligence agent continues in Farsi. "We know everything about you, you are on our blacklist, and we have all the information about you."

"OK," the Iranian officer, identified as Mohsen Fathi Zadeh, head of the Protection and Intelligence Organization of the Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) of Iran, replies in the recording.

The Israeli agent continues: "Your daughter's name is Zahara, and your wife's name is Jahanbachsh, your mother's name is Nadia, and your father's name is Husain. I called to warn you in advance that you should stand with your people's side. And if you will not do that, your destiny will be as your leader's [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]. Is that clear?

"Brother," the Iranian commander responds, "I swear on the Quran I'm not your enemy, I'm a dead man already; just please come help us and cut off the head of all of the commanders."

The call, a recording of which was sent to JNS by Israeli intelligence sources, was one of hundreds that Israeli Mossad agents made to senior Iranian security officials since the outbreak of the war on Feb. 28, in an effort to weaken the regime and its supporters.

The calls are coupled with the targeted killings of top Iranian leaders, from Khamenei, who was slain in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war, followed by, among others, Iran's top security official and the head of the feared Basij militia.

"This reveals the extent of the Israeli penetration into the Iranian governmental system," IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, an intelligence and security expert, told JNS on Sunday. "It is part and parcel of Israel's goal to weaken the Iranian regime to create the condition for the Iranian people to change it."

He noted that the psychological warfare Israel was using in Iran, coupled with targeted assassinations, was similar to the tactics the IDF used against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's proxies, only now at a distance of about a thousand miles away.

"There is no doubt that this is weakening the regime, but it is too early to say if this will do the work," Kuperwasser said. "It is hard to determine at what point the regime is so weak that the people will rise up against it. Time will tell."

Over the last three weeks, Israel has been hunting down Iranian regime members, one by one, and taking out their supporters on the streets of Iran.

Iranian experts said that the Islamic regime was fighting for its very existence, so it will take time to see any major change.

"This is part of Israel's widespread psychological warfare being used against Iran, but whether it will be more than a tactical success, it is too early to say," Tel Aviv University professor Meir Litvak told JNS.

He noted that with the stakeholders of the Iranian regime ruthlessly "fighting for their lives," the system continues to function for now even as it is weakening.

The use of intelligence targeting senior Iranian commanders both physically and psychologically comes a year and a half after thousands of pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously in two separate events across Lebanon and Syria, in a highly acclaimed Mossad operation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month that Israel has "many more surprises" in store for the next phase of its Iran operation.

Kuperwasser said that patience was needed in a planned four- to six-week war, which has now entered its fourth week.

"Patience, endurance, and perseverance are what will determine the outcome," he said.

© JNS