Mossad used ‘remote-controlled machine gun’ kill Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

Mossad smuggled one-tonne ‘robot’ machinegun into Iran piece by piece to kill head of nuclear program, it’s claimed.

Slain Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Picture: AFP/ Ho Khamenei. IR

Mossad smuggled a one-tonne “robot” machinegun into Iran piece by piece before using it to kill the head of the country’s nuclear program, according to new claims about the assassination.

A 20-member Mossad squad was involved in the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 59, according to an account given to the Jewish Chronicle. Israel has never commented publicly on claims that Mossad was responsible for the hit but anonymous briefings have not denied them and it would fit previous assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

According to the account, attributed to Israeli intelligence sources, the squad consisted of Israeli and Iranian citizens and it conducted eight months of surveillance beforehand. The machinegun was assembled and then used to shoot Fakhrizadeh 13 times after his car was stopped on a road near his holiday home east of Tehran in November.

Explosives packed inside the gun then detonated to destroy the evidence.

Watched for eight months

“The team built up an extremely detailed, minute-by-minute plan,” a source was quoted as saying. “For eight months, they breathed with the guy, woke up with him, slept with him, travelled with him. They would have smelt his aftershave every morning, if he had used aftershave. They knew his daily route, speed and timing, and they knew exactly which doors they would use to get out.”

Fakhrizadeh was travelling to the town of Absard with his wife and a dozen bodyguards when he was assassinated. Neither his wife, who was sitting ten inches to his side, nor any of his security team were harmed.

In December the Iranian authorities attributed the hit to an automated “robot” gun controlled by satellite, but weapons experts said that was not the most efficient or accurate way to carry out an assassination.

“Most elegant way’ to only hit Fakhrizadeh

The new account disputed that. “There were several ways to operate but this one was the most accurate,” the source said. “It was the most elegant way to make sure that the target will be hit, and only him. The objective was to avoid harming anyone else.”

Members of Iranian forces pray around the coffin of slain nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh during the burial ceremony on November 30, 2020. Hamed Malekpour/Tasnim News/AFP

The killing was a blow to Iran’s nuclear program, which has been reactivated since President Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed harsh sanctions. The role of Fakhrizadeh, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was to oversee it. Israeli intelligence officials believe it would now take two years for Iran to build a nuclear weapon if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, gave the go-ahead, longer than previous estimates.

However, the UN’s atomic energy watchdog confirmed on Thursday that the program had produced its first uranium metal, a key component of a nuclear warhead. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it had verified the production of 3.6g of uranium metal at a manufacturing facility in the city of Isfahan. The development is a breach of the 2015 deal, which banned production of uranium or plutonium metals and alloys for 15 years. Iran has gone beyond the terms in other areas but this is seen as an important step because it represents a development not made before the deal was signed.

President Biden has committed himself to restoring the deal. Washington’s Iran hawks say that he needs to do more than simply re-enter. Critics were unhappy about its time limits and its failure to address Iran’s broader policies of supporting Shia militias across the Middle East, targeting American allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Israel has also hinted that it will take matters into its own hands if it believes Iran is nearing the ability to build a nuclear device.

The Times