Tehran, Iran. Via Business Traveler
On May 22, a senior officer of Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
The assassination took place in the Mojahedin Eslam street in the eastern part of Tehran. The officer, identified by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) as Colonel Hassan Sayyad, was gunned down inside his car by the assailants, who were armed with silenced guns and moving on a motorcycle.
IRNA released a photo showing the dead body of Col. Sayaad inside his white SAIPA Saba. The state-run agency didn’t say if the assailants were captured or managed to flee.
Click to see original-size image. Source: the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
The IRGC’s Quds Force specializes in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. The exact work of Col. Sayyad with the force is yet to be revealed.
This was the first assassination of an Iranian figure since the 27 November 2020 assassination of nuclear physicist and scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was known as the “father of Iran’s nuclear program”.
Fakhrizadeh was ambushed while traveling in a black Nissan Teana on a rural road in Absard, a city near Tehran. He was reported shot and killed with a remotely-control gun with an artificial intelligence-based identification system. The assassination of Fakhrizadeh was attributed to the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency.
The assassination of Col. Sayyad was also likely the work of the Mossad, which reportedly used the exact same attack method to assassinate Iranian postgraduate electrical engineer Darioush Rezaeinejad on 23 July 2011.
Iran will likely escalate and retaliate to the assassination, which may have been orchestrated by Israel to sabotage the ongoing US-Iran talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
