The targeted killing of a senior Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei is another chapter in the shadow war between Israel and Iran, with Tehran already pointing the finger at Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and threatening revenge.
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The incident seemingly followed a familiar pattern: drive-by shooting by gunmen who sped away on motorcycles. This is how a series of nuclear scientists were eliminated last decade, and each time Iran pointed the finger at Israel. Iranian authorities have announced a manhunt for the assassins, and while here, too, the motorcycle will most likely be found abandoned somewhere but the shooters will be nowhere to be found.
As these operations go, nothing will have been left to chance, both to ensure those who carry them out escape safely and to avoid any chance of them being linked to whoever ordered the operation.
An operation of this nature requires exceptional intelligence-gathering capability in the target country. It includes putting together a dossier on the target – from basic personal details, through habits, work routine, and leisure activities, to involvement in hostile activities. Assuming that Israel is indeed behind it, an order of such nature has to clear a long line of hurdles within the Mossad, the defense establishment, and of the political echelon before a green light is given. The latter also has to consider political and diplomatic circumstances, and then, of course, there is the issue of timing.
Unlike previous hits carried out on Iranian soil, the target this time was not related to the Iranian nuclear program but to the Islamic republic's infamous Quds Force, which is responsible for exporting the Iranian revolution – a euphemism for Iran's state-sponsored terrorism around the world.
According to the official announcement in Tehran, Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei was active in Syria and was likely involved in the efforts to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah and Iranian militias in Syria, as well as in Iran's attempts to entrench itself militarily on the Syria-Israel border.
If Israel did order the assassination, one can learn that Jerusalem does not limit the campaign against these Iranian efforts only to the so-called "campaign between the wars" – the ongoing Israeli military and intelligence effort to disrupt the force build-up of the Iranian-Shiite axis throughout the Middle East – but rather it is expanding its countermeasures. In this respect, it is a clear signal to Iran – and a very direct one at that, saying that Tehran will be made to pay for its action, even on its own soil.
It is doubtful the Iranians will change their ways, but this does not diminish from the importance of such messages. Beyond the immediate operational blow to Quds Force operations – it will take to find a replacement for such a senior officer and any replacement will need time to find his bearings - the assassination will exert immediate psychological pressure on all top IRGC officers.
As expected, Iran was quick to announce that it had arrested an Israeli "spy ring," a move most likely intended to reduce public and internal pressure on them for failing to keep senior government officials safe, and more importantly, for importing the war from Syria home.
Such criticism has been growing in Iran in recent years, especially around the point that Iran is investing what little money it has in foreign countries rather than in its own strapped economy. While this criticism is very troubling to the authorities, so far it has not prompted them to stop efforts to arm their proxies in the region. This hit on its soil should at the very least create dilemmas for the ayatollahs regarding the price they are paying for it.
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