Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Hezbollah's booby-trapped pagers on Sept. 17, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech the Hezbollah secretary general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, said one of the sources, a senior Iranian official.
The messenger, the official said, was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander, Brig. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit by Israeli bombs and was also killed.
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