The New York Times has issued a new report citing unnamed US officials who believe that Israel came close to assassinating Iran’s top negotiators Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
According to the report, a concrete Israeli threat against Ghalibaf and the FM emerged while they were traveling back to Iran from Islamabad following talks with US Vice President JD Vance on April 12.
Prior to that point, during active fighting, Israel had worked its way through killing much of Iran’s senior leadership starting with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but questions lingered over whether the country’s top negotiators – who have come to represent Tehran on the global stage – could be deemed legitimate targets.
Even as Washington and regional brokers stepped in to try and halt the prospect of runaway conflict, wherein the US would find itself in yet another ‘forever war’ and quagmire, Israel still floated the potential for more assassinations targeting top Islamic Republic leadership.
The NYT, citing officials, sets up the mid-April near-miss incident as follows:
In April, Mr. Ghalibaf was set to travel to Islamabad to meet with Vice President JD Vance. But Iranian security officials were concerned that Israel would use the opportunity to assassinate Mr. Ghalibaf or Mr. Araghchi to derail the talks, the officials said.
Iranians sought guarantees from the United States, through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries, that Israel would not carry out any covert operations targeting the Iranian delegation, the officials said.
Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian airplanes carrying a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the border of Iran to Islamabad and back again when the session was over.
But on the way back to Tehran, an Israeli security threat emerged.
From there, Iranian security forces reportedly notified Ghalibaf’s plane of intelligence indicating that Israel planned to attack the aircraft – and the delegation took the warning seriously enough to divert from the original flight path and make an emergency landing in Mashhad, northeastern Iran.
Hellbound and Down 