| See also here. |
Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodayari, a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officer, was gunned down in Tehran on Sunday in a carefully coordinated operation, Israeli media reported.
The approach
Khodayari was driving his car near his home on Mahadi al-Islam Street in Tehran at around 16:00 local time. There, two unknown assailants riding a motorcycle approached his vehicle, rapidly closing the gap between them and Khodayari, according to Walla News.
THE ATTACK
From point-blank range, equipped with a silenced weapon, the two fired five shots at Khodayari, killing him instantly. The assassins were nowhere to be seen and a manhunt is currently underway.
The aftermath
The IRNA published pictures showing a man strapped in with his seat belt with the front window on the passenger side shot out.
The man was slumped over in the driver's seat with blood around the collar of his blue shirt and on his right upper arm.
THE GETAWAY
Reports of Khodayari's assassination began to circulate in Iran and around the world, while security forces in Iran were frantically searching for the assassination squad.
Meanwhile, the ISNA news agency reported that the IRGC had exposed and arrested a network of Israeli intelligence agents.
"In accordance with the Zionist regime's intelligence service instructions, the network tried to steal and destroy public and personal equipment, hijack and obtain false confessions through a network of thugs," the IRGC said.
The target
Khodayari was considered a senior officer in the IRGC.
According to Iranian sources, Khodayari was responsible for attempts to abduct and assassinate Israelis in Cyprus, Turkey and Colombia, N12 reported.
The IRGC also reported that Khodayari was involved in the security of the Shiite holy places in Damascus and that he had a close relationship with Qasem Soleimani, an IRGC commander who was killed in a US airstrike in 2020.
| Courtesy of badanov: |
IRGC member assassinated in Tehranhttps://t.co/a5kpQuRZHQ
— SHAFAQ News (@Shafaqnews) May 22, 2022
| Rudaw adds: |
...They hate in Syria or Iraq.
He was shot at around 4:00 pm near Mojahedin-e-Islam Street, according to the agency.
Little information was publicly available about Khodayari, as Quds officers tend to be shadowy figures carrying out secretive military missions supporting
Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group, and other militias in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.But according to Channel 13 news, one of the operatives under Khodayari’s direction was Mansour Rasouli.
In April, it was reported that Rasouli, said to be a member of the IRGC, admitted to Mossad agents, during an interrogation at his home in Iran, that he was sent to target an Israeli diplomat in
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
, as well as an American general stationed in Germany, and a journalist in La Belle France.
Channel 12 reported that Khodayari was also behind an attempt — recently uncovered by the Shin Bet — by Iranian operatives to lure Israeli academics, businesspeople, and former defense officials abroad and possibly kidnap them.
That report also said he was behind an alleged plot to kill five Israelis in Cyprus.
Channel 12 also said that Khodayari had recently returned from Syria, where he served under former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force and celebrated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani
, who himself was killed in a US ...
KABOOM!...
in Iraq in January 2020.
An Iranian security source was quoted as saying he also played an "important" role in Iran’s military industry, "especially when it came to drones."
The long-running shadow war between Israel and Iran
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...has been bursting into the open in recent months, with more direct attacks attributed to Israel against Iranian targets in Syria and mutual cyberattacks carried out by both nations, threatening to bring the regional rivals to the brink of direct warfare.