Iranian Revolutionary Guard Colonel is shot dead outside his Tehran home

A senior member of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard was shot dead in his car outside his home in Tehran today by unidentified gunmen on a motorbike, state TV reported.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that one of its officers, Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, was the victim of the rare assassination.

The two assailants shot Khodaei five times in his unarmored Iranian-made Kia Pride, it was said.

Reports identified Khodaei only as a ‘defender of the shrine’ – a reference to Iranians in the Guard’s elite Quds force who oversee foreign operations. The semi-official ISNA news agency reported that members of an Israeli intelligence service network had been discovered and arrested by the Guards.

Although the Guard gave only scant detail about the attack, the group blamed the killing on ‘global arrogance’ – a code typically used to refer to the United States and Israel. 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has declined to comment on events in Tehran.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that one of its officers, Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, was shot five times outside his home in Iran

Reports identified Khodaei (pictured) only as a ‘defender of the shrine’ – a reference to Iranians in the Guard’s elite Quds force who oversee foreign operations

Little information was publicly available about Khodaei, as Quds officers tend to carry out secretive military missions supporting Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and other militias in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.

The Tehran prosecutor arrived at the crime scene within hours of the killing to investigate and demanded police urgently arrest the perpetrators. 

The probe’s speed suggested Khodaei’s prominence in the murky structure of the Guard’s overseas operations.

Shots were fired through the window of Colonel Khodei’s car outside his home 

Those operations have come under repeated Israeli air attack in Syria. An Israeli strike near the Syrian capital of Damascus killed two Guard members in March, prompting Iran to retaliate by firing a missile barrage into northern Iraq.

Security forces were pursuing the suspected assailants, state TV reported, without offering further details or giving a motive for the killing.

Around the same time, state-run media said the Revolutionary Guard’s security forces had uncovered and arrested members of an Israeli intelligence network operating in the country, without elaborating on whether they had any connection to Khodaei’s slaying.