Iran’s chief nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was murdered by a team of Israeli spies who used a remotely controlled 1-ton machine gun that was smuggled into the country in pieces, according to a new report.
The team of more than 20 Mossad agents, some of whom were Iranian citizens, spent eight months gathering surveillance and planning the attack before the gun injected 13 bullets into Fakhrizadeh on November 27, as he was taken from Tehran to his residence, reported the London Jewish Chronicle newspaper. .
The national intelligence agency Mossad is the feared Israeli CIA counterpart.
The gun was so accurate that neither the 59-year-old man’s wife nor any of his 12 bodyguards were injured in the attack on Absard, according to the agency, which said the gun was fired remotely from a Nissan pickup.
The heavy weapon also included a bomb, which destroyed the evidence after the attack, according to the Chronicle, which reported that the murder was carried out only by Israel with US involvement.
Israeli analysts concluded that the death of the so-called “father” of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program extended the period of time it would take Tehran to obtain a bomb of about 3 ½ months for at least two years, according to the report.
And the Iranian regime has secretly estimated that it will be six years before a replacement for Fakhrizadeh becomes fully operational, he added.
Sources told the Chronicle that the mission to eliminate Run’s chief nuclear scientist was successful in part because Iranian security services were too busy watching suspicious political dissidents.
A separate report from the vehicle traced the origins of the attack until January 21, 2018, when it said that Mossad agents stole a large cache of Iran’s nuclear secrets using torches to release 50,000 pages of documents and 163 CDs from 32 safes.
Sources told the Chronicle that Jerusalem is using the intelligence it has collected to persuade the Biden government, through the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran cannot be trusted to comply with the terms of any nuclear deal.
“We will base our arguments this time on pure intelligence, not politics. It will be cleaner to do this, ”an Israeli source told the media, adding that the secrets would not be new to the United States, but that the Israeli authorities would be offering their own interpretation.
When Israeli analysts saw the materials recovered by the spies in 2018, they knew that Fakhrizadeh was destined to “leave”, using Mossad slang.
“It contained original documents ordering the concealment of the nuclear program, many of them in Fakhrizadeh’s handwriting,” a source told Chroncile.
“Analysts realized that they were looking at their ink, their fingerprints, their pressure on the paper while writing. It was he who was behind the mistake, ”continued the source.
“Fakhrizadeh was the father of everything we found in the archive. Everything was under his command, from science and secret websites to personnel and know-how. He led an operation to hide him from the world. From then on, it was just a matter of time, ”added the source.
In March 2020, a team of Israeli spies was sent to Iran, where they met with local agents, according to the report.
“The team built an extremely detailed, minute-by-minute plan,” a source told the Chronicle. “For eight months, they breathed with the guy, woke up with him, slept with him, traveled with him. They would have smelled his aftershave every morning if he had used aftershave. “
The agents decided to kill Fakhrizadeh on the road from East Tehran to Absard, where he owned a villa.
“They knew their daily route, speed and time, and they knew exactly which doors they would use to get out,” a source told the channel.
On November 27, when Fakhrizadeh was traveling with his wife in a black Opel along with a convoy of 12 bodyguards, a team of Mossad agents watched and waited for the right moment to unleash the deadly blast, according to the report.
When the vehicle passed a designated location, they pressed a remote button that fired 13 shots that hit Fakhrizadeh while his wife, who was sitting 25 centimeters away, came out unscathed.
Iranian officials claimed that Fakhrizadeh’s head of security was hit by four bullets when he fired at the scientist, but sources close to the operation told the agency that no one else was killed or injured in the attack.
“There were several ways to operate, but this was the most accurate,” said a source to the Chronicle.
“It was the most elegant way to guarantee that the target will be reached, and only him. The aim was to avoid hurting anyone, ”said the source, adding that the allegations that the snipers moved to end the scientist were inaccurate.
While the Israeli team escaped, the weapon exploded alone.
“Thank God we removed all of our people and they didn’t catch anyone. They didn’t even come close, ”said a source familiar with the operation at the outlet. “Their security was not bad, but the Mossad was much better. It was an important thing that happened – a dramatic operation. “