On anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini�s death, former Mossad agent Yossi Alpher explains Israel�s continuing concerns over Iran and its �secret� relations with Saudi Arabia

Thirty-three years after he left the Mossad, Israel�s external intelligence arm, one memory sometimes wakes Yossi Alpher at four in the morning. What if Mossad had agreed to a request in early 1979 to kill Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then still in exile near Paris?

�It�s impossible to answer,� Alpher said in an interview. �But there is a case to be made for the centrality of very charismatic leaders, and so for the consequences of their disappearance.�

Alpher relates the bare bones of incident in his recent book Periphery: Israel�s Search for Middle East Allies. He was summoned by Mossad head Yitzhak Hofi and told that Mossad�s Tehran representative, Eliezar Shafrir, had received a plea to assassinate Khomeini from Shapour Bakhtiar, appointed caretaker prime minister by the Shah to head off growing protests.

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