Iran’s nukesRemote-Control Killing: Iran Says Top Nuclear Scientist Assassinated by Machine Gun Guided Via Satellite
A machine gun equipped with a “satellite-controlled smart system” was used to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist, a senior official with the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has said. Officials have blamed Israel for the brazen, daytime attack on 27 November in Absard, some sixty kilometers from the capital, Tehran, though it didn’t offer any evidence for the claim.
A machine gun equipped with a “satellite-controlled smart system” was used to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist, a senior official with the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has said.
Officials have blamed Israel for the brazen, daytime attack on 27 November in Absard, some sixty kilometers from the capital, Tehran, though it didn’t offer any evidence for the claim.
Israel, which has been blamed for the assassination of at least four other Iranian nuclear scientists, has not commented on the attack.
Speaking in Tehran on 6 December, IRGC Deputy Commander Ali Fadavi said the smart system had “zoomed in” on Fakhrizadeh’s face using “artificial intelligence” while adding that Fakhrizadeh’s wife — who was only “25 centimeters away” — was unharmed.
Fadavi confirmed earlier reports that there were no assassins on the ground to carry out the killing.
He said the special weapon fired a total of 13 times, hitting Fakhrizadeh four or five times, including a shot to his spinal cord that caused severe bleeding and led to his death as he was being transported via helicopter to a Tehran hospital.
Four bullets also hit the chief of Fakhrizadeh’s security detail, who had attempted to protect him by “throwing himself” on the nuclear scientist, Fadavi said. That confirmed media reports that one of Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards had been injured in the attack.
He also said that 11 bodyguards were accompanying Fakhrizadeh and that the explosion of a truck during the attack targeted the security team.
Fadavi’s account is the latest version of the assassination that has resulted in serious criticism of Iran’s security apparatus.
Initial reports immediately after the killing suggested that the scientist was targeted in a suicide attack, which included several gunmen. But media later only reported that the assault included gunfire and a truck explosion.
A filmmaker close to the hard-line faction of Iran’s establishment, which also includes the IRGC and other groups, said hours after the attack that 12 gunmen, including two snipers and a powerful car bomb, were involved in the ambush of Fakhrizadeh’s four-vehicle convoy.
Later, the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency reported that there were no hitmen on the ground and that the attack was carried out by a remote-controlled machine gun mounted on a pickup truck that later exploded.
Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani had also said there were no attackers on the ground while blaming Israel and suggesting the exiled Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organzation had played a role.
