A senior member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force was assassinated on Sunday afternoon by two motorcyclists in Tehran, the state-owned Tasnim news agency said.
Although the Guards gave only scant detail about the attack that occurred in broad daylight in the heart of Iran's capital, the group blamed the killing on “global arrogance,” typically code for the United States and Israel.
That accusation, as well as the style of the brazen attack, raised the possibility of a link with other motorbike slayings previously attributed to Israel in Iran, such as those targeting the country's nuclear scientists.
Tasnim identified the man as Col. Hassan Sayad Khodayari, and said that he was assassinated while sitting in his car in front of his house. The two assailants shot the victim five times, state media said.
Reports identified the target only as a “defender of the shrine,” a reference to Iranians who fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq within the Guards' elite Quds force, which oversees operations abroad.
Khodayari was likely behind a series of plots against Israeli businesspeople and diplomats in various countries over the past few months.
The Tehran prosecutor arrived at the crime scene within hours of the killing to investigate and demanded police urgently arrest the perpetrators. The probe’s speed suggested Khodaei's prominence in the murky structure of the Guards' overseas operations.
Those operations have come under repeated Israeli air attack in Syria. An Israeli strike near the Syrian capital of Damascus killed two Guards members in March, prompting Iran to retaliate by firing a missile barrage into northern Iraq.
Security forces were pursuing the suspected assailants, state TV reported, without offering further details or giving a motive for the killing.
Iran has been sending fighters to Syria since the early stages of its civil war to support its ally, President Bashar Assad, against Sunni rebels. The "defenders of the shrines" also include Afghan and Pakistani volunteers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Security forces were pursuing the suspected assailants, state TV reported, without offering further details or giving a motive for the killing.
Meanwhile, members of Israel's intelligence service were discovered by the Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran, the official Iranian Students News Agency reported.
"Under the guidance of the Zionist regime's intelligence service, the network attempted to steal and destroy personal and public property, kidnapping and obtaining fabricated confessions through a network of thugs," the IRGC public relations service said in a statement.