Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syyed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Hezbollah's booby-trapped pagers on September 17, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech the Hezbollah secretary general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, told Reuters.

The messenger, the official said, was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit by Israeli bombs and was also killed.

Khamenei personally ordered a barrage of around 200 missiles to be fired at Israel on Tuesday, a senior Iranian official said. The attack was retaliation for the deaths of Nasrallah and Nilforoushan, the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.