Iran blames Israel for killing IRGC colonel in May 

Iran’s judiciary has confirmed it was holding individuals accused of involvement in the high-profile killing of a colonel back in May that Tehran blamed on Israel’s intelligence apparatus.

Judicial spokesperson Masoud Setayeshi said at a Sept. 13 press conference in Tehran that an investigation into the assassination of Hassan Sayyad Khodai was underway.

Khodai was a member of Iran’s Quds Force, the overseas branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and had served in Syria, where the Islamic Republic has been active for over a decade to avert the collapse of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad.

Setayeshi did not disclose the identities of those arrested, citing the “classified and confidential” nature of the probe.

When Khodai was gunned down outside his Tehran home on May 22, IRGC-affiliated news outlets claimed to identify the hallmarks of the Israeli Mossad spy agency. Iranian authorities condemned the attack as “state terrorism” and called on the United Nations to follow suit. President Ebrahim Raisi declared that revenge was “inevitable” for the assassination, which showed deep intelligence infiltration well inside the Iranian capital.

In the wake of the attack, the Israeli press reported that the slain colonel had been involved in an international effort to strike a hit list of Israelis in Turkey and other locations worldwide.

“In Turkey, we stopped attacks against businessmen and diplomats,” Mossad Director David Barnea said Monday, elaborating on how his agency had thwarted Iranian “terrorist” attacks.

Barnea also claimed that an agreement between Tehran and Washington on the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal will only provide the Islamic Republic with the financial means to bolster its proxies across the Middle East. Such a deal, he warned, will not leave Iran “immune” from Israeli operations “if Iranian proxies come after us.” The Mossad chief went on, “This will happen in Tehran, in Kermanshah, in Isfahan,” referring to the Iranian capital and two other major cities in the country.

On the same day as Barnea’s speech, Iranian commander Brig. Gen. Kioumars Heidari went on a state TV program in which he discussed a homemade suicide drone, dubbed Arash 2, tested in a national exercise late August. 

“The pinpointing and strategic drone,” Heidari declared, “has been especially designed for attacks on the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa.”