A former senior Mossad official has said that the spy organisation has created a special branch for infiltration operations, psychological warfare, and influenced public opinion in Iran, and the ultimate goal was to weaken and end the Islamic regime. The official added that the unit was established in 2021, coinciding with the beginning of David Barnea's tenure as head of Mossad.
The mission of the unit was to create a rift between Iranian society and the government, undermine the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, and pave the way for political change in Iran, the unnamed official told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
In this interview, the official said that before Barnea came to power, even using the phrase "regime change" was a sensitive and almost forbidden topic in Mossad, but over the following years, overthrowing the Islamic Republic became one of the central goals of the organisation's activities.
One of the operations of the unit was the leaking of a photograph featuring Rostam Qasemi, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and Minister of Roads in the government of Ebrahim Raisi. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, in 2022, Mossad provided media outlets opposing the Islamic Republic with a photo taken years ago during Qasemi's trip to Malaysia. In the photo, Qasemi was seen hugging a woman who was not his wife and was not wearing a hijab.
The photo was published amid protests following the killing of Mahsa Amini and was quickly reposted on social media. A few days later, Ghasemi resigned from his position, a resignation that Islamic Republic officials attributed to his physical condition and illness.
The former Mossad official said that the release of this image was part of the organisation's new strategy to eliminate Islamic Republic officials without resorting to assassination operations. "Sometimes, exposing a case or embarrassing information can lead to the removal of an official from power. This is much cheaper and easier than carrying out an assassination operation," he added.
Mossad's "poison machine"
The Mossad also operated "poison machine"; a network of fake accounts, anonymous pages, and content distribution systems that, according to the former official, have been used to spread information and narratives aimed at destabilising the Islamic Republic.
He claims that this network has expanded in recent years using new technologies and, in some cases, with the help of artificial intelligence, and even created virtual characters and fake influencers to spread the desired messages.
One of the first actions of the unit was to create a new intelligence unit to study public opinion, media, and social networks in Iran. The former branch official says that Mossad, using surveys, media analysis, and social media data, had concluded that the gap between society and the government was widening and that a significant portion of Iranian society no longer believed in the survival of the Islamic Republic.
The report reveals that the release of images attributed to Mossad agents inside Iran during recent Israeli operations was not simply a propaganda move to showcase intelligence success.
