Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officer killed by gunmen in Tehran on Sunday, was responsible for recruiting operatives for terror attacks against Israelis, an informed source told Iran International on Monday.
The source, a European security official who spoke to Iran International on condition of anonymity, said Khodaei had been involved in a number of terrorist operations against Israelis in three continents including Asia, Europe, and Africa. These include an attack in the capital of India, New Delhi, on February 13, 2012, in which a diplomat’s wife was wounded.
The intelligence source also told Iran International that Khodaei tried not to attract attention to himself as an intelligence agent and avoided wearing the IRGC uniform. According to the source, the IRGC officer was fluent in regional languages, including Turkish, Kurdish, and Arabic.
On the same day as the New Delhi attack in 2012, other operations against Israeli targets, allegedly by Iranian agents, were uncovered and aborted in Tbilisi, Georgia, and several Central Asian countries.
On Sunday, two motorcyclists opened fire on Khodaei, who was parked in front of his home in Tehran.
Iranian media outlets reported that Khodaei was shot five times, and that his wife found him slumped over in his car.
The IRGC denounced the assassination as a "criminal terrorist act", and claimed that it had earlier on Sunday broken up a "network of thugs linked with the Zionist regime of Israel's intelligence service".
On Monday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed that his country would avenge Khodaei’s death.
Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to Oman, Raisi called the elimination of Khodaei an act of “terrorism”, adding that Iran would take “revenge” for Khodaei’s killing.