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On the funeral in Tehran for a colonel in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, hundreds of mourners packed the streets across the cemetery chanting “Dying to Israel” and calling for revenge for his killing.
The commanders of the Guards and the Quds Power — the highly effective unit throughout the Guards accountable for operations outdoors Iran’s borders — had been each in attendance, hinting on the colonel’s significance.
Col. Sayad Khodayee, 50, was fatally shot outdoors his residence on a quiet residential avenue in Tehran on Sunday when two gunmen on bikes approached his automobile and fired 5 bullets into it, in response to state media. Iran has blamed Israel for the killing, which bore the hallmarks of different Israeli focused killings of Iranians in a shadow struggle that has been taking part in out for years on land, sea, air and in our on-line world.
“We’ll make the enemy remorse this and not one of the enemy’s evil actions will go unanswered,” Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards, stated in a speech on Monday. A member of Iran’s Nationwide Safety Council, Majid Mirahmadi, stated the killing was “positively the work of Israel,” and warned that harsh revenge would observe, in response to Iranian media.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli prime minister declined to touch upon the killing. However in response to an intelligence official briefed on the communications, Israel has knowledgeable American officers that it was behind the killing.
The US has designated the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group — a choice that has been a sticking level within the negotiations with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran has demanded that the designation be eliminated as a situation for restoring the deal, however the US has refused, leaving the negotiations frozen.
Israel is staunchly against the nuclear deal and a few Iranian analysts near the federal government stated the assault was aimed toward derailing the nuclear talks at a fragile level and undermining any chance that Iran and the US may attain a consensus over the problem of the Guards.
The Israelis advised the People the killing was meant as a warning to Iran to halt the operations of a covert group throughout the Quds Power often known as Unit 840, in response to the intelligence official, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate labeled info. Unit 840 is tasked with abductions and assassinations of foreigners world wide, together with Israeli civilians and officers, in response to Israeli authorities, army and intelligence officers.
Israeli officers stated Colonel Khodayee was the deputy commander of Unit 840, and was concerned in planning cross-border plots towards foreigners, together with Israelis.
They stated that he was in control of the unit’s operations within the Center East and international locations neighboring Iran and had been concerned over the previous two years in tried terrorist assaults towards Israelis, Europeans and American civilians and authorities officers in Colombia, Kenya, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Cyprus.
Iran has by no means acknowledged the existence of Unit 840.
Iran, as an alternative, has portrayed the colonel as a martyred hero who joined the Revolutionary Guards as an adolescent, volunteered as a soldier within the Iran-Iraq struggle and went on to play a distinguished function within the Quds power preventing the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria, a detailed ally of Iran.
Iranian officers haven’t commented on Israeli accusations that Colonel Khodayee was concerned in transborder terrorism plots.
However some Iranian analysts stated that the accusations had been aimed toward stopping the US from agreeing to take away the Guards’ designation as a terrorist group, and thereby block an settlement on the restoration of the nuclear settlement.
“We’re additionally in a disinformation struggle with Israel,” stated Gheis Ghoreishi, an analyst near Iran’s authorities. “These provocations are designed to strain all sides to name off the nuclear deal or push Iran to react in a method that might be damaging. However Iran all the time takes the long-term calculative strategy.”
There have been no indications that the colonel was well-known outdoors of protection circles and he didn’t have the safety protocol — bodyguards, armored automobile and gated housing — that’s typical for senior army officers in Iran, in response to two folks affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian state media revealed images it stated had been from the scene, exhibiting a person they recognized as Colonel Khodayee slumped behind the wheel of an Iranian-made Kia Satisfaction, nonetheless carrying a seatbelt and bleeding from gunshot wounds.
However there have been different indications that he could have been a big determine within the Quds Power: Senior Quds Power members sometimes use aliases within the international locations the place they function, and a Telegram channel affiliated with the Quds Power stated the colonel was recognized within the subject by the alias “Colonel Shekar,” Persian for hunter.
Two folks affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, who requested to not be recognized as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk publicly, gave a considerably completely different description of the colonel’s function from the one Israeli officers offered.
They stated he was a logistical knowledgeable who performed a vital function within the transportation of drone and missile know-how to fighters in Syria and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. He was additionally a tactical adviser to militias preventing in Syria that had been skilled and armed by Iran, they claimed.
The commander of the Quds Power, Gen. Esmail Ghaani, attended the colonel’s funeral in Tehran on Tuesday — an indication that he seen the killing of a member of his power as a grave matter. Basic Ghaani changed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani because the Quds Power chief after Basic Suleimani was killed in a U.S. airstrike in January 2020.
Israel has a historical past of assassinating nuclear scientists inside Iran with drive-by shootings by gunmen on bikes. However whereas earlier assaults inside Iran had been primarily centered on nuclear targets and army infrastructure, this assassination gave the impression to be a uncommon occasion of Israel concentrating on Guards members inside Iran in retaliation for plots towards its residents.
In 2020, Israel assassinated the nation’s high nuclear scientist and deputy protection minister, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, utilizing a remote-controlled A.I. assisted robotic.
The plan to focus on Colonel Khodayee could date again at the very least to July 2021. That was when operatives working for Israel’s intelligence company kidnapped a farmer named Mansour Rasouli from Uromieh, Iran, in response to Israeli intelligence and army officers.
The officers stated that the Revolutionary Guards had recruited Mr. Rasouli, who was a part of an area drug dealing gang, as successful man for targets outdoors of Iran.
The officers stated the brokers who kidnapped him had been searching for details about the command chain of Unit 840, which Israel says that Colonel Khodayee was a pacesetter of. The brokers launched Mr. Rasouli after the interrogation, they stated.
Israel leaked the story of Mr. Rasouli’s abduction to the Saudi-financed, London-based, Persian information channel Iran Worldwide in early Could, in response to an Israeli official. He stated the leak was supposed to ship a message to Iran that Israel had the flexibility to penetrate deep into Iranian safety circles.
It was additionally supposed to warn Iran’s leaders to cease Unit 840’s operations, this official stated.
In a video message posted on social media and the BBC Persian language service this month, Mr. Rasouli denied the accusations towards him.
He stated {that a} gang of males had thrown tear gasoline at him, tied his palms, positioned a bag over his head and shoved him violently right into a automobile and whisked him away to an undisclosed location. He additionally stated the abductors tortured him, threatened to kill him and his household, and compelled him to admit to receiving cash from the Revolutionary Guards to hold out assassinations in Europe.
“I deny this,” stated Mr. Rasouli within the video. “They took my telephone away by power and can most likely publish extra photos of me as a result of they’re able to doing something.”
On the time, Iranian media known as the kidnapping “a fictional story” and “lies.” However on Monday, the day after Col. Khodayee was killed, Iran’s state tv reported that the authorities had arrested a hoop of informers spying for Israel who kidnapped and extracted pressured confessions from Iranians.
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