Israel managed to find and kill a top Revolutionary Guards commander despite his forswearing of communication methods that aided Israeli assassinations before, his daughter revealed, amid allegations that Israel used WhatsApp to track down its targets.
“My father’s location changed every few hours. He carried no smart devices or phones. Security protocols were followed, yet during his time commanding the war headquarters, he was repeatedly targeted for assassination by Israel,” Mahdieh Shadmani, daughter of Ali Shadmani, wrote on Instagram on Friday.
Ali Shadmani, who had been appointed commander of Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, was killed just four days after assuming the post. His predecessor, Gholam Ali Rashid, had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Mahdieh Shadmani added that her father was not in uniform at the time of his assassination and was tracked and killed while wearing “plain, dusty clothes without military insignia.”
She made the remarks in reaction to allegations that Israel used WhatsApp messaging app to track down Iranian military commanders.
During the twelve-day war, Iranian state media urged citizens to delete WhatsApp from their smartphones, alleging that the app gathered information it passed to Israel.
WhatsApp denied the accusation and warned that such claims could be used as a pretext to restrict access to the service for users in need of information inside Iran.
Israel killed a number of top commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the war.
Among the confirmed deaths were Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami, IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh and IRGC Deputy for Operations Mehdi Rabbani.
