Iranian media reported that senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps member Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei was killed on May 22 by two gunmen on a motorbike in the Mujahidin al-Islam Street, near the Parliament in east Tehran. The unidentified assailants shot Khodaei five times.

IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif accused Israel of assassinating Khodaei and vowed to take revenge.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi emphasized that revenge on such criminals is inevitable.

This is the most high-profile killing inside Iran since November 2020, when Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated outside of Tehran.

Implications of Khodaei’s Assassination

These can be outlined as follows:

1.   Continued breach of Iran’s security:

The assassination of Khodaei shows that Iran’s security is continuously breached by Israel. It was carried out in a traditional way in the heart of the capital Tehran in broad daylight and close to the building of the parliament. The gunmen were riding a motorbike and used machine guns. The success of the operation shows Iran’s failure to protect its senior officials despite the process of President Raisi’s efforts to restructure and purge security and intelligence agencies in an ongoing process he launched when he took office.

Raisi sought to bring about changes in an attempt to address security failures that allowed a series of major attacks on the country. These include two attacks on Natanz nuclear factory in July 2020 and April 2022; an attack on Iran’s Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA) in June 2021, as well as the elimination of Fakhrizadeh in November 2020 during the tenure of former president Hassan Rouhani.

The success of these attacks is proof that these measures were not enough to prevent more assassinations or sabotage operations. Moreover, the assassination of Khodaei inside Iran means that Israel continues to operate espionage and sabotage networks in the heart of Tehran.

2.   Weak security protection of Khodaei:

Evidently, Khodaei did not have any special security protection although he was a deputy commander of a powerful division within the IRGC that is responsible for extra-territorial operations. He was in his unarmored Iranian-made Kia Pride and without any bodyguards when he was killed in front of his house.

The assassination of Fakhrizadeh, however, was more complicated and required the use of a weapon that utilized artificial intelligence and facial recognition to target him when he was among his guards in a heavily guarded convoy.

3.   Israel’s attempt to weaken threats posed by Iran:

The latest operation inside Iran is part of Tel Aviv’s efforts to prevent Iran from taking advantage of Russia’s withdrawal of some of its military units from Syria and expanding its presence on Syrian territory. This was evidenced by Israel’s frequent attacks on the sites of militias allied with Iran inside Syria. The latest of these attacks targeted such a site in Jamraya on the outskirts of Damascus, one day before Khodaei was assassinated. Furthermore, Israel conducted large-scale war games simulating a large-scale attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Khodaei was reportedly close to IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani where he was responsible for transferring precision-guided missile technology to Hezbollah in Lebanon. He was also responsible for delivering drones to militias allied with Iran when he led a shadowy IRGC division called Unit 840, which is tasked with targeting Israelis around the world.

Israeli media reported that Khodaei was involved in an attempt to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Istanbul, a US general in Germany as well as a French journalist. The assassination of Khodaei follows Iran’s claims that it arrested a spy network in Iran that was connected to Israeli intelligence. But Iran did not say whether there was any connection between the breaking up of the spy network and the assassination of the colonel. Either it was another network that was not involved in the killing of Khodaei, or Iran made it up to show that it is capable of neutralizing threats posed by Israel.

4.   Placing pressure on Iran during nuclear talks:

The assassination of Khodaei coincided with failures at the nuclear talks in Vienna, halted in March after Iran insisted on demands that Washington deems as excessive and “outside the scope of the nuclear deal and cannot be fulfilled. On May 25, Robert Malley, US President Joe Biden's special envoy for Iran, said that prospects of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal were “tenuous at best”, and noted that Washington is prepared to respond to any Iranian escalation against Israel and Washington’s allies in the Middle East. This was reiterated during a visit by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz to Washington where he met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in the White House.

What emphasizes continued coordination between the United States and Israel against threats posed by Iran is that US media quoted intelligence sources saying that Tel Aviv informed Washington that the Israelis were behind the killing of Col. Khodaei. This, furthermore, expresses Washington’s desire to place pressure on Iran through Israel to force Tehran to give concessions that would break the current deadlock over the nuclear talks.

Iran’s Response

Iran may take either one of the two following approaches to respond to the assassination of Khodaei:

1.   Escalation:

Iran publicly accused Israel of being behind the killing of Khodaei, which was confirmed by US media. As a result, Iran, which vowed to take revenge, is likely to respond through a series of retaliatory attacks in Syria, Iraq, Erbil or anywhere against Israel and American interests.

A May 24 attack by armed drones on the Victoria military base near Baghdad International Airport can be counted as part of Tehran’s willingness for a rapid response, and is likely to escalate tensions between Iran, on the one side, and Israel and the United States, on the other. However, because it caused no casualties, Iran cannot count the recent drone attack as part of retaliation for Khodaei’s elimination.

2.   Deferred Revenge:

Iran, which has not taken revenge for Soleimani and Fakhrizadeh, might as well defer its revenge against Israel for Khodaei’s assassination, and has only made open threats that it would do so. Additionally, Iran might defer its retaliation either because of its inability to carry out its threats, or because it wants to avoid compromising the Vienna nuclear talks, which are already facing serious challenges.

Perhaps what may well force Iran to embrace this approach is that protests against worsening living conditions are intensifying across Iranian provinces where protestors are chanting slogans against the Iranian regime. Tehran followed this approach on several occasions, including the murder of its nuclear scientist Fakhrizadeh and frequent attacks against allied militias in Syria.

The conclusion would be that escalation between Israel and Iran is likely to continue in the coming period. While Israel seeks to counter threats posed by Iran’s IRGC in Syria, Iran seeks to bolster its presence in Syria and pose threats to American and Israeli interests in the whole region. What would halt the escalation is perhaps the incomplete collapse of the nuclear talks as well as Iran’s preoccupation with the domestic protests.