Head Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in a town east of Tehran November in an Israel Mossad operation that for the first time used a remote-controlled machine gun, the New York Times reported Saturday.
The assassin “was peering into a computer screen at an undisclosed location more than 1,000 miles away. The entire hit squad had already left Iran,” according to the report.
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The report is based on interviews with American, Israeli and Iranian officials, including two intelligence officials familiar with the details of the planning and execution of the operation.
Fakhrizadeh, according to the report, liked to lead a “normal” life, and often drove his own car, instead of having bodyguards drive him in an armored vehicle, as he did the day of his assassination, accompanied by armed guards in escort vehicles.
Since 2007, the Mossad had assassinated five Iranian nuclear scientists and wounded another, prior to killing Fakhrizadeh. Most of them had worked for Fakhrizadeh in what Israeli intelligence officials said was a covert program to build a nuclear warhead.