Wed 09 December 2020:
Some of those involved in the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist last month have been arrested, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, an adviser to the Iranian parliament speaker, said on Tuesday, according to the semi-official news agency ISNA.
“The perpetrators of this assassination, some of whom have been identified and even arrested by the security services, will not escape justice,” ISNA quoted Amir-Abdollahian as telling Iran’s Arabic-language Al Alam TV.
Iran has previously accused archenemy Israel of seeking to sow “chaos” by killing 59-year-old Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and has strongly implied that the Jewish state was acting with the blessing of the United States.
Fakhrizadeh, who headed research and innovation at the defense ministry, was attacked late November in Damavand county near Tehran. Assailants reportedly bombed a vehicle ahead of Fakhrizadeh and fired at his vehicle, wounding him and others with him.
The wounded were rushed to a hospital where Fakhrizadeh died from his injuries.
Satellite-controlled machine gun
A satellite-controlled machine gun with “artificial intelligence” was used in last week’s assassination of a top nuclear scientist in Iran, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards told local media Sunday. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was driving on a highway outside Iran’s capital Tehran with a security detail of 11 guards on November 27, when the machine gun “zoomed in” on his face and fired 13 rounds, said rear-admiral Ali Fadavi.
The machine gun was mounted on a Nissan pickup and “focused only on martyr Fakhrizadeh’s face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25 centimetres away, was not shot,” Mehr news agency quoted him as saying.
It was being “controlled online” via a satellite and used an “advanced camera and artificial intelligence” to make the target, he claimed.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani also joined top officials in accusing Israel of killing the top nuclear scientist. It was an attack that is fanning the flames of tension in the region.
The attack drew anger and outrage across Iran. A large group of protesters gathered outside Rouhani’s office late Friday in Tehran and demanded strong retaliation.
It is the second high-profile assassination of an Iranian since January when a U.S. airstrike killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
Iranian officials see Israel-U.S. coordination in that attack.
