Kurdish Militias in Israel’s Iran Plan: Details Emerge of Mossad’s ‘Regime Change’ Project

A reported Israeli strategy for changing Iran’s government relied on more than air power. It also envisioned Kurdish armed groups crossing from Iraq, igniting an uprising in western Iran and advancing toward Tehran, according to details published by international and Israeli media.

Le Monde, citing a source close to the Israeli military, said the plan involved six or seven armed Kurdish organizations based outside Iran. Together, they were expected to send several thousand fighters across the Iraq-Iran border into Kurdish areas. The plan reportedly excluded PJAK, the Iranian branch of the PKK.

The scenario depended on the fighters mobilizing local opposition in major Kurdish cities. Israeli and U.S. forces were reported to have armed some Kurdish allies in Iraq in the months before the war. Israel’s Channel 13 separately reported that Israeli warplanes were expected to strike Revolutionary Guard positions along the Iran-Iraq border, creating an entry route for the Kurdish forces and supporting their movement into northwestern cities.

According to the reported Mossad plan, the arrival of an initial armed group would encourage thousands of Kurds to join, turning the operation into a mass movement that could eventually reach Tehran. Protests involving millions of people would then bring down the government.

Ronen Bergman of The New York Times reported that the operation was supposed to begin about 100 hours after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. Israeli attacks on military facilities, air-defense systems, police stations and selected border targets in Iran’s Kurdish regions during the opening days of the war were described as consistent with that scenario. Israeli outlets Channel 12 and Ynet also reported an effort by Mossad and the CIA to arm Kurdish militias outside Iran, including with weapons allegedly captured during Israel’s wars against Hamas and Hezbollah.