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Israel's Mossad intelligence agency has removed two of its most senior officials from their posts following the failure of a covert operation that had aimed to topple the Iranian regime, according to Israeli media reports Thursday.
Mossad director Roman Gofman decided to dismiss the head of the agency's intelligence directorate, who had taken up the post only in December, along with the head of the agency's Iran division. Both officials were reportedly among those who conceived and drafted the plan to replace Iran's leadership.
Security sources said there had been no personal rapport between the two officials and Gofman from the outset, and that their departures from their current roles are being handled by agreement. The sources added that both may remain within the organization in other capacities, and that the moves are part of a broader reorganization of the agency. Nonetheless, the sources indicated the intent behind the decision was unambiguous.
The two officials, whose contributions to state security were described as considerable, are said to be paying the price for the failure of a plan that had reportedly been presented to President Donald Trump but was ultimately not carried out on the ground.
According to the reports, Israel and the United States had worked together on a classified and ambitious plan involving the Mossad and the CIA, which sought to combine a ground invasion by Kurdish forces with massive Israeli-American air cover.
In May, The New York Times reported that the United States and Israel had entered the war against Iran with a specific candidate in mind to lead a new government in Tehran: former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served as Iran's president from 2005 to 2013 and was known for his hardline rhetoric and confrontations with the West over Iran's nuclear program.
American officials and a source close to the former Iranian president described how the operation unraveled quickly, on the first day of the war, according to the reports. As part of an effort to free Ahmadinejad, the Israeli air force reportedly struck his house in Tehran in an attempt to release him from house arrest, an attack that left him wounded.
The strike, according to the report, had been intended to kill the guards holding Ahmadinejad. He survived the attack, but the incident reportedly led him to begin expressing doubts about the plan to overthrow the regime.
No officials named in the reports were quoted directly, and Mossad has not issued public comment on the personnel changes.
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