TEHRAN, Iran — A senior member of Iran’s highly effective Revolutionary Guard was killed exterior his residence in Tehran on Sunday by unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle, state TV reported.
Although the Guard gave solely scant element concerning the assault that occurred in broad daylight within the coronary heart of Iran’s capital, the group blamed the killing on “global arrogance,” usually code for the United States and Israel.
That accusation, in addition to the model of the brazen killing, raised the potential of a hyperlink with different motorcycle slayings beforehand attributed to Israel in Iran, reminiscent of these concentrating on the nation’s nuclear scientists. There was no rapid declare of duty for the assault.
The two assailants shot Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei 5 occasions in his unarmored Iranian-made Kia Pride, state media mentioned, proper off a extremely safe avenue residence to Iran’s parliament.
Reports recognized Khodaei solely as a “defender of the shrine,” a reference to Iranians who struggle in opposition to the extremist Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq throughout the Guard’s elite Quds drive that oversees international operations.
Little info was publicly accessible about Khodaei, as Quds officers are typically shadowy figures finishing up secretive navy missions supporting Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and different militias in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
The Tehran prosecutor arrived on the crime scene inside hours of the killing to analyze and demanded police urgently arrest the perpetrators. The probe’s pace prompt Khodaei’s prominence within the murky construction of the Guard’s abroad operations.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”