{"id":554388,"date":"2026-07-22T17:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/554388\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T17:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:36:08","slug":"araghchi-details-escape-from-israeli-strike-reveals-iranian-intelligence-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/554388\/","title":{"rendered":"Araghchi details escape from Israeli strike, reveals Iranian intelligence failures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi<\/a> has offered one of the most revealing public accounts yet of the opening hours of the Israel-Iran war, describing how he narrowly escaped an Israeli strike on a compound where senior Iranian officials had gathered and suggesting Israel’s intelligence capabilities inside Iran extended far beyond technological surveillance.<\/p>\n

In a more than 90-minute interview with Iranian journalist Javad Moghouei, Araghchi<\/a> recounted the panic, destruction, and confusion that followed Israel’s opening strikes, while acknowledging what he described as serious security failures within the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Araghchi said he was inside the compound of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a> on the morning the war began.<\/p>\n

“I was with Ali Hejazi, chief of staff to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at nine o’clock, and we were finally going over a report on the negotiations,” Araghchi recalled. “I happened to have reached the part describing the heavy wartime atmosphere… then suddenly, there was an attack.”<\/p>\n

\"SatelliteSatellite imagery from an alleged Israeli strike on the bunker where Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is being guarded. (credit: FAIR USE UNDER ISRAELI COPYRIGHT LAW, ARTICLE 27A)<\/p>\n

He said the blast left the compound<\/a> in ruins.<\/p>\n

“We entered through the same beams, beds, and other wooden debris,” Araghchi said. “From the room, we came into a hall where the sound of ‘Ya Hossein’ could be heard. Water was dripping from the ceiling, and everything was in a state of ruin.”<\/p>\n

Araghchi reveals how he escaped Israeli strikes on Iranian officials’ bunker<\/p>\n

According to Araghchi, security personnel immediately evacuated him from the area.<\/p>\n

“The security personnel quickly grabbed my hand, telling me I had to leave because the attacks would probably continue,” he said.<\/p>\n

A young security official then drove him to the Foreign Ministry in an ordinary civilian vehicle.<\/p>\n

“A young man came up and said, ‘Sir, come on, I’ll take you to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.’ The poor guy showed up with what I think was a Tipa or maybe a Peugeot 206. We got in, and he drove me to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Araghchi said.<\/p>\n

Araghchi also discussed what he described as Israel’s remarkably accurate intelligence<\/a> regarding the movements of Iran’s senior leadership.<\/p>\n

“This coincidence, this insight, and the fact that it happened at 9:30 in the morning, I no longer attribute this to technology or artificial factors,” Araghchi said. “I really don’t know what to make of it.”<\/p>\n

He said Iranian authorities are investigating the possibility of human infiltration within the country’s security apparatus.<\/p>\n

“Now the security forces are pursuing this,” Araghchi said. “I believe this security vulnerability is not only about infiltration and data theft. Sometimes it also affects the orientation of decision-making, and even worse, it influences and shapes our psychological environment.”<\/p>\n

Despite the chaos, Araghchi said Iranian officials had prepared emergency procedures in advance.<\/p>\n

“There was even a code<\/a>,” Araghchi revealed. “If a certain code is triggered, what should we do?… The code is Code 110.”<\/p>\n

He suggested discussions about succession or emergency leadership arrangements were considered so sensitive that officials rarely addressed them openly.<\/p>\n

Araghchi said Iran’s leadership also abandoned its normal offices after the attacks.<\/p>\n

“Of course, we weren’t in our offices, but near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we had arranged alternative locations,” Araghchi said. “I don’t know how secure they really were, but in the end, there was no safe place at all. Except for the tunnel, there was nowhere safe.”<\/p>\n

Even underground facilities<\/a>, he said, had significant limitations.<\/p>\n

“Tunnels matter, but do you know the condition for using them? If you go, you have to stay for a few days. You can’t just go in and come back quickly. So you can’t go because you have work to do outside,” Araghchi said.<\/p>\n

The foreign minister said he repeatedly tried to minimize the risks his security personnel faced.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes I told the guards, ‘Don’t come with me. Maybe they want to fire a missile, and you can’t do anything. You might just get killed for no reason,'” he said.<\/p>\n

Araghchi also disclosed extensive diplomatic efforts to prevent additional fronts from opening during the conflict.<\/p>\n

“One evening I spoke with Nechirvan Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq; Bafel Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan; Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan; and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani,” Araghchi said.<\/p>\n

“I personally called Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and warned that if even the slightest threat came from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq against us, we would take action.”<\/p>\n

Asked whether those conversations had any effect, Araghchi replied that they had.<\/p>\n

“The Kurdistan Regional authorities and Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani assured me that they would never allow this to happen… Turkey played a significant role.”<\/p>\n

His comments suggested Ankara worked to prevent Kurdish territory from becoming a launching point for attacks against Iran.<\/p>\n

Iranian FM Araghchi says he has never met Mojtaba Khamenei<\/p>\n

In another notable revelation, Araghchi said he has never met Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is widely believed to have assumed a central role in Iran’s leadership following the war.<\/p>\n

Asked about his relationship with Mojtaba Khamenei, Araghchi replied that he had not met him yet.<\/p>\n

“I never have. I haven’t seen him during this time. I don’t think anyone except maybe one or a few people have seen him.”<\/p>\n

The remarks underscore the extraordinary secrecy surrounding Mojtaba Khamenei’s position within the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Although careful not to criticize the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps directly, Araghchi appeared to question decisions made in the later stages of the conflict.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the ceasefire, he offered an unusually candid assessment.<\/p>\n

“If we had implemented the ceasefire ten days earlier, our achievements would have still stood,” Araghchi said. “But we had Ali Larijani, senior adviser to the Supreme Leader; Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib; Mohammad Asadollahi; and the Foolad Mobarakeh steel complex.”<\/p>\n

The remarks appeared to amount to a rare public critique from one of the Islamic Republic’s most senior surviving officials.<\/p>\n

Summing up his view of both the war and the negotiations, Araghchi argued that Iran had achieved its strategic objectives early in the conflict.<\/p>\n

“In my opinion, our strategic achievements were accomplished within the first two weeks of the war,” Araghchi said. “It means realizing that the Islamic Republic cannot be subdued. In other words, they failed to achieve any of their objectives.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has offered one of the most revealing public accounts yet of the opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50433,42,87,43,157282,17468,157283,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-554388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-abbas-araghchi","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-news","tag-operation-epic-fury","tag-operation-rising-lion","tag-operation-roaring-lion","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}