It sounded like the aftermath of any assassination attempt against a high-ranking representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The killing of the "great martyr" Sajjad Khodaei will be avenged, President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday.

He directly accused "hands of global arrogance".

On Sunday around four o'clock in the afternoon they killed the Colonel of the Revolutionary Guard with five shots in front of his house in Tehran.

The two assassins escaped on a motorcycle.

The assassination comes at a critical time for the regime, as cuts in subsidies have led to protests across the country for weeks.

Rainer Herman

Editor in Politics.

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Christian Meier

Political correspondent for the Middle East and Northeast Africa.

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Khodaei was part of the Quds Forces responsible for operations abroad, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

In this special unit he is said to have been responsible for scouting out targets for assassination attempts and for carrying them out.

Although the Israeli government did not comment, many commentators in Israel felt it was likely that Israel's foreign intelligence service, Mossad, was responsible for the assassination.

This is indicated, for example, by the actions of the assassins.

Revolutionary Guard: Spy ring exposed

The Israel Hayom newspaper wrote that the assassination "appears to be a continuation of the shadow war between Israel and Iran."

Unlike in previous cases of targeted killings on Iranian soil, the victim has no connection to the country's nuclear program.

It was also considered unusual that the crime took place in broad daylight.

One conclusion was that the Iranian leadership should be made aware that Israel can strike anywhere and anytime, including within Iran.

Just a few months ago, an attack on an Iranian drone base was reported, said to have come from Israel.

Iranian state television announced on Sunday that the Revolutionary Guards had uncovered an Israeli spy ring that aimed to destroy property, kidnap people and extract fabricated confessions.

The reason for the wording of this statement is a video that caused a stir a few weeks ago.

In Tehran, suspected drug dealer Mansour Rasooli, who is said to be close to the Revolutionary Guards, told Mossad agents that he had been commissioned to carry out three attacks with the help of his contacts in the European underworld.

It is about an Israeli citizen in Turkey, an American officer in Germany and a French journalist.

The spy ring received an advance of $150,000.

Most recently, on November 14, 2019, the Iranian dissident Masoud Molawi was killed by eleven shots in Turkey.

He had long worked on Iran's cyber program, but fled to Turkey and revealed secrets of Iran's armaments program on his website.

Contract killers from the underworld were deployed on Molawi.

The Turkish judiciary suspected two Iranian diplomats as backers.