Turkish media reported on Friday morning, February 11, that the country’s intelligence and security services had identified and arrested eight people on charges of forming a gang to assassinate an Israeli-Turkish businessman living in Istanbul.

According to the Turkish newspaper Sabah, the detainees were on a mission by the Islamic Republic of Iran to assassinate Yair Geller “with the aim of taking revenge on Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.”

The Turkish intelligence and security services have identified nine people suspected of pursuing Yair Geller at his place of residence and work in the Besiktas district of Istanbul, but have arrested eight.

Israeli media reported that Yair Geller is a trader in the field of arms sales and the Israeli military industry. He conducts his business through a company called “Advanced Technology Science”. The company is also active in the aerospace industry.

According to the Vient website, the conspiracy of Iranian-linked intelligence agents to assassinate Mr. Geller was, in Iran ‘s view, a step in retaliation against Israel for the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a senior Iranian nuclear scientist.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in a targeted assassination attributed to Israel on the 7th of Azar 2020 in the suburbs of Damavand. Some Israeli officials have implicitly confirmed his killing as part of a multi-year Mossad crackdown.

Since the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s deputy defense minister and known as the “father of Iran’s nuclear program,” Israeli officials have warned that the Iranian regime may seek revenge.

According to the Sabah newspaper, which is close to the Turkish government and usually publishes specific news about the dead, the Turkish Intelligence and Security Agency, one of the detainees was Yasin Tahereh Hammakandi, a Turkish intelligence officer who visited Iran.

According to the report, the second member of the gang, Saleh Mushtaq Bighoz, was responsible for liaising with the perpetrators of the conspiracy on Turkish soil.

Sabah newspaper also published the names and photos of seven other members of the gang and the mission assigned to them. They were in contact with each other through Iranian mobile phone numbers and refused to communicate with each other via WhatsApp.

According to the report, the MIT organization shared its information with senior representatives of Mossad, Israel’s foreign spy agency, and was transferred to a safe place under their guidance, but the gang agents were unaware of this and in recent days They also continued to spy on, pursue, and complete the plot until the corpse found that the information obtained was sufficient to detain them.

Sabah added that the other purpose of the conspiracy was to damage Turkish-Israeli relations, in which case it would “put Turkey in a difficult position on the international stage.”

Relations between Ankara and the Israeli government have recently improved after nearly 12 years of tensions, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announcing the imminent visit of Israeli President Ishaq Herzog to Ankara last week.

The news of the arrest of an Iranian-linked gang for killing an Israeli-Turkish businessman in Istanbul came as Turkish media reported this week that another gang had been arrested in their country for kidnapping an opponent of the Islamic Republic.

Arrest of 17 people in Turkey on charges of complicity in the kidnapping of an opponent of the Islamic Republic

The Turkish security service, Mitt, announced the arrest of 17 people on charges of complicity with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence in the kidnapping of an opponent of the Islamic Republic living in Turkey.

According to the organization, among the group that organized the kidnapping plot is a prosecutor named “Davood Yilmaz”. From the beginning to the end, he worked with the kidnappers in this operation.

Davut Yilmaz has been a top prosecutor in the Anadolu district of Istanbul since 2019, and other judicial records, such as the Attorney General in Mardin Province and the city of Cheshmeh, have given him an important position in the kidnapping operation, using his judicial authority to assist kidnappers. Be.

Turkish media have reported that all 17 were arrested in a simultaneous operation, but Davut Yilmaz, who has coronary heart disease, has not yet been arrested and is under police surveillance at home.

All detainees were charged with “espionage” and all were interrogated.

Other members of the team include the owner of a defense industry trading company, several officers, and a retired colonel named Kamil Tashi.

The body of the deceased has not revealed the identity of the person who was to be abducted, but noted that this opponent of the Islamic Republic has long lived in the port city of Zongoldak.

The Islamic Republic has already abducted or killed a number of its opponents from neighboring countries such as Iraq and Turkey.

Massoud Molavi Vardanjani, for example, was shot and killed in November 2019 in Istanbul.

According to Western media reports, two Iranian intelligence agents ordered the assassination of Massoud Molavi, and Naji Sharifi Zindashti, a prominent smuggler allegedly linked to Iran’s intelligence services, and Mahmoud Reza Naserzadeh, an Iranian diplomat, are among the defendants in the case.

The trial of the detainees in this case is currently underway in Istanbul.

Habibullah Chaab, better known as Habib Assiwad, an Iranian-Swedish citizen known as the former leader of the Al-Ahwaz Liberation Arab Movement or the Nidal Movement, and Ruhollah Zam, director of the Amadnews Telegram channel, were abducted from Turkey and Iraq, respectively.

An Assyrian trial is under way in Iran, and Ruhollah Zam has also been sentenced to death

I have previously referred to the Iranian regime’s terrorist acts abroad in several reports, in particular the killing of hundreds of dissidents abroad and their new tactics of kidnapping dissidents.