The “Butcher of Aleppo,” a notorious Revolutionary Guards commander who was expelled from Syria last November, was appointed to lead operations to kill Israelis in Turkey, Iran International reported on Friday.

General Javad Ghafari had led the IRGC Intelligence Organization’s plots to kill Israelis in Turkey for the past nine months, a former senior IRGC official told the London-based opposition media outlet.

After Ghafari was expelled from Syria in November for a “major breach of Syrian sovereignty”, he was appointed the deputy head of IRGC Intelligence Organization for Special Operations and planned a number of attacks against Israeli citizens in Turkey that b’chasdei Hashem, were all thwarted by Israeli and Turkish intelligence forces.

Ghafari served in Syria, initially in Damascus and later in Aleppo, where he earned his notorious moniker, the “Butcher of Aleppo”. He was expelled from the country by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after he almost caused an “unwanted regional war” with Israel in “a major breach of Syrian sovereignty at all levels,” according to a November 2021 Times of Israel report that quoted AlHadath, a Saudi television network operated by Al Arabiya.

The report said that Ghafari was expelled by Assad after he acted “contrary to instructions and led “a number of activities against the United States and Israel that almost led to the entry of Syria into an unwanted regional war, including the attack on American targets in Syria on October 20 by Iranian-backed militias.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)