Assassinations of Iranian nuclear, military VIPs

Iran on Monday accused 'Zionists' of being behind the assassination of Revolutionary Guards Colonel Sayyad Khodai, who was shot dead outside his home earlier this month. His killing is the latest attack targeting Iranian senior military figures or scientists linked to the country's controversial nuclear programme. We look back at over a decade of targeted killings, for which Iran blames either Israel, the United States or both. 2010: PARTICLE PHYSICS PROFESSOR In January 2010, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a renowned particle physics professor and nuclear scientist at Tehran University, is killed when a booby-trapped motorcycle explodes outside his home in the capital. Several leaders and official media in Iran blame the attack on Israeli and US intelligence services. 2010: ATOMIC AGENCY MEMBER In November 2010, a leading member of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation (AOEI), Majid Shahriari, dies after assailants travelling on motorbikes attach a bomb to the window of his car while he is on his way to work in Tehran. Another nuclear scientist, Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, who goes on to become head of the AOEI, is wounded in a simultaneous attack, also targeting his car. Iran accuses the CIA and Israeli spy service Mossad of being behind the attacks. 2012: NUCLEAR FACILITY DIRECTOR In January 2012, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a deputy director of the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, is killed by a car bomb attached to his vehicle in eastern Tehran. Iran again accuses the US and Israel. 2020: COMMANDER In January 2020, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force -- the foreign operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards -- is killed in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport along with his Iraqi lieutenant and others. Soleimani is one of the most popular figures in Iran, with a huge following on Instagram. He is the public face of Iran's intervention in the Syrian conflict on the side of Bashar al-Assad. Iran calls his killing an 'act of war'. 2020: TOP NUCLEAR SCIENTIST In November 2020, one of Iran's top nuclear scientists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is killed in a bombing and shooting attack on his car outside Tehran. He had been under US sanctions for his role in Iran's nuclear programme. Iran claims that the attack was carried out by a remote-controlled machine gun, a claim corroborated by The New York Times in a special report in 2021. 2022: 'DEFENDER OF THE SANCTUARY' On May 22, Revolutionary Guards Colonel Sayyad Khodai is killed after being sprayed with bullets as he sits in his car outside his home in Tehran. State television describes him as a member of the Quds Force. The Guards describe him as a 'defender of the sanctuary', a term used for those who work on behalf of Iran in Syria or Iraq. They vow to avenge his assassination by 'Zionists'.