TEHRAN —
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Monday accused
“Zionists” of shooting dead a colonel in Tehran earlier this month, days after
Israel reportedly told the US it was behind the killing, according to AFP.
اضافة اعلان
Guards Colonel
Sayyad Khodai, 50, was fatally shot on May 22 outside his home in the east of
the Iranian capital by assailants on motorcycles. He was hit with five bullets,
according to official media.
It was the most high-profile killing inside Iran
since the November 2020 murder of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh - an
act Tehran blamed on arch-enemy Israel.
Khodai was killed
“by the most vicious people, the Zionists, and God willing, we will avenge his
death,” head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Major General Hossein Salami said
during a visit to his family, according to the Guards’ Sepah News website. The
general did not, however, use the term “Zionist regime”, routinely used by the
Islamic republic as a direct reference to Israel. “The enemy pursued him (the
colonel) from the heart of the White House and Tel Aviv for months and years,
door to door and alley to alley to martyr him,” Salami added.
The New York Times
reported last week that Israel has told the US that Israel was behind the killing of Khodai. The
US daily cited an anonymous “intelligence
official briefed on the communications”.
Iran had earlier
blamed Khodai’s killing on “elements linked to the global arrogance”, its
catch-all term for the US and allies including Israel.
According to
the
New York Times, Israeli officials claimed Khodai was the deputy commander
of a “secret unit within the Quds Force”, involved in “planning plots against
foreigners, including Israelis”. The Quds Force is an elite unit of the Guards
in charge of external operations.
The source, who
spoke to NYT on condition of anonymity, said Israel told US officials the
killing was meant as a warning to Iran to halt the operations of this covert
group.
Stalled nuclear talks
Iran’s state television has said that Khodai was a member of the Quds
Force and that he was “known” in Syria, where Iran has acknowledged deploying
“military advisers”. The Guards described Khodai as a “defender of the
sanctuary”, a term used for those who work on behalf of Tehran in Syria or
Iraq.
On Tuesday,
thousands of Iranians attended Khodai’s funeral, before he was buried in the
martyrs’ section of Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in southern Tehran.
The colonel’s
killing came as negotiations between Iran and world powers to restore a frayed
2015 nuclear deal remain at a standstill, after stalling in March. One of the
main sticking points is Tehran’s demand — rejected by Washington — that the
Guards be removed from a
US terrorism blacklist.
The agreement gave
Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to prevent
Tehran from developing an atomic bomb — something it has always denied wanting
to do. But the pact was left on life support after then
US president Donald Trump pulled out of it unilaterally in 2018 and reimposed biting economic
sanctions on Tehran, prompting Iran to begin rolling back on its own
commitments.
Israel has
consistently opposed the 2015 nuclear deal.
Warnings for citizens
Israel on Monday warned its citizens against travel to Turkey, citing
Iranian threats of revenge for the assassination of Khodai. Israel’s
National Security Council said in a statement that Tehran could be looking to harm
Israelis in Turkey and classified it as a “high-risk country”, according to
Arab News.
Israel has also
raised the security level at its embassies and consulates around the world,
fearing a retaliatory Iranian attack.
Israel occused Khodai of
plotting attacks against its citizens worldwide. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali
Bennett’s office, which overseas intelligence agency Mossad, said on Sunday
that Tehran would “pay the full price” for instigating attacks on Israelis.
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