A senior member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was killed by two unidentified gunmen on the street outside of his home in Tehran. Col. Hassan Sayad Khodayari was shot five times while sitting in his car by two people on motorcycles in what is being called an assassination. No group has taken responsibility for the attack.
Khodayari, who is reported to have planned attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets throughout the world, has been called in Iranian reports a “defender of the sanctuary,” which is a term for Iranians who carry out operations in Syria and Iraq on behalf of the IRGC’s Quds Force. Iran’s state television reported that security forces were on a manhunt for the assailants.
The assassination of Khodayari comes less than two years after lead Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in an attack blamed on Israel’s Mossad.