The Assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

Some readers might recall the killing of the Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last November. The details of the assassination were scant at the time, but a recent piece at Strategy Page fills in some of the blanks.

Here are some excerpts:

Mossad, the Israeli external-intelligence agency, planned the operation. Some twenty operatives, including Israelis and Iranians, observed Fakhrizadeh for eight months. At the same time Israel smuggled a RWS (Remote Weapon System) machine-gun into the country. This RWS was modified to operate from a pickup truck or van.

It is unclear what caliber machine-gun was used against Fakhrizadeh, who was shot dead after the security vehicle ahead of his car was fired on. He was curious as to what was happening, exited his own vehicle, was fired on and shot twice, fatally.

Apparently, the Iranians did not suspect a concealed vehicle mounted RWS, and that vehicle was rigged with explosives that were set off remotely after the attack. There was little left for the Iranians to collect and reassemble. The Israelis may have used a foreign RWS or an Israeli one “sanitized” to hide its origins.

None of the Mossad personnel involved were captured and all got away.

This attack involved a machine-gun controlled by a skilled operator. One report described the RWS as mounted and concealed on a pickup truck. Another source reported that this was strictly an Israeli operation, with no American involvement.

Fakhrizadeh, be it noted, was no innocent. He was a senior Iranian nuclear scientist working to develop nuclear weapons to be used against Israel and other of Iran's enemies.

He was also a veteran IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) general. The IRGC is a terrorist organization whose erstwhile leader Qasem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Iraq in January of last year.

During decades of IRGC service the 63-year-old Fakhrizadeh also managed to get several advanced scientific degrees, including a doctorate in physics. With that technical training Fakhrizadeh became a key member of the team developing nuclear weapons for Iran.

His prominence in the nuclear weapons program was mentioned several times in the half-ton of secret nuclear program documents Israel stole from Iran in 2018. Those documents confirmed the key role Fakhrizadeh played in the nuclear program, something he was sanctioned for by the United States as far back as 2008.

He is the fifth key member of the Iranian nuclear weapons effort to be killed since 2010. The loss of Fakhrizadeh is expected to slow Iranian nuclear weapons development, and it will take years to find a suitable replacement.

The gun used to kill Fakhrizadeh was controlled remotely, and apparently no operatives were actually at the scene.

There's more in the article about the RWS. Someday when a history of Mossad's operations is written - if it ever is - we'll probably be astonished at the cleverness and skill of those who fight to protect Israel against those who've sworn to annihilate it and its people in a nuclear fireball.