*TEHRAN: An Iranian Revolutionary Guards colonel was shot dead outside hisTehran home on Sunday, the Guards said, blaming his “assassination” onassailants linked to the United States and its allies.*
The killing of Colonel Sayyad Khodai is the most high profile murder insideIran since the November 2020 killing of top nuclear scientist MohsenFakhrizadeh.
Iran had accused Israel of masterminding the attack on Fakhrizadeh’s convoynear Tehran, and later identified him as a deputy defence minister.
On Sunday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said that “elementslinked to global arrogance” — a reference to the US and its allies,including Israel — were responsible for the “terrorist act” that claimedKhodai’s life.
In a statement posted on their website, the Guards said Khodai “wasassassinated in an armed attack carried out by two motorcyclists onMojahedin-e Eslam street in Tehran”, outside his home.
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The Guards — the ideological arm of Iran’s military — described Khodai as a“defender of the sanctuary”, a term used for anyone who works on behalf ofthe Islamic republic in Syria or Iraq.
Iran wields considerable influence in Iraq, home to key Shiite holyshrines, where it says it has “military advisors” tasked with trainingforeign “volunteers”.
Revered general Qasem Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force, the foreignoperations arm of the Revolutionary Guards, was killed in a US drone attackin the Iraqi capital Baghdad in January 2020.
