Iranian officer killed in Tehran ‘planned attacks against Jews’

IRAN’S president has vowed to avenge the killing of a Revolutionary Guard officer who was shot in his car outside his Tehran home by gunmen on motorcycles on Sunday.

Israeli media has claimed Col Hassan Sayad Khodayari was planning global attacks against Jews. Drive-by assassinations are a favoured modus operandi of Mossad hit squads.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had arrested several “thugs linked to the intelligence agency of the Zionist regime,” as Iran calls its arch-enemy Israel.

Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, echoed the IRGC statement. “There is no doubt that the hand of global arrogance can be seen in this crime,” he said yesterday, using a term referring to the United States and its allies, including Israel. “I have no doubt that the blood of this great martyr will be avenged.”

Following the shooting, Israeli media published reports alleging that Col Khodayari had planned to kidnap and kill Israelis, including a plot to eliminate five nationals in Cyprus that was foiled by Cypriot authorities in November.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the country’s spy agency Shin Bet had recently uncovered a plot masterminded by Col Khodayari to lure Israelis overseas and kidnap them.

He was also behind a plan to target an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, a journalist in France, and an American general in Germany, Channel 12 news reported. Israel does not normally comment on covert operations abroad and Benny Gantz, the defence minister, declined to confirm any involvement in Col Khodayari’s killing. “The state of Israel is very strong,” he told Channel 12 news.

“I’m not addressing all the various reports that appear in all sorts of places.”

Col Khodayari was a member of the IRGC’S Quds Force, with state news agency IRNA calling him a “defender of the sanctuary”, suggesting he had been deployed abroad to Syria or Iraq.

IRNA published photos showing Col Khodayari slumped in the driver’s seat of a civilian vehicle.

His killing was the most high-profile assassination in Iran since that of Mohsen Fakhrizadeha, a nuclear scientist in 2020, which US intelligence agents later said was carried out by Israel.

‘There is no doubt the hand of global arrogance can be seen in this crime. The blood of this martyr will be avenged’