December 7, 2020

The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist last month was carried out remotely with artificial intelligence and a machinegun equipped with a “satellite-controlled smart system”, a senior commander has said.

Iran has blamed Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was seen by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian programme to develop nuclear weapons capability. Tehran has long denied any such ambition.

“No terrorists were present on the ground … Martyr Fakhrizadeh was driving when a weapon using an advanced camera zoomed in on him,” Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency, quoted Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as saying at a ceremony on Sunday.

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