Days after the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the country’s state media painted an elaborate picture of the killing that makes it sound like something straight out of a second-rate spy movie.
A bulletproof car. A remote-controlled machine gun. A seemingly self-destructing vehicle.
Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency said, Fakhrizadeh was traveling with his wife in a bulletproof car in the city of Absard, east of Tehran. They were surrounded by a security detail of three vehicles.
Fars reported that Fakhrizadeh heard what sounded like bullets hitting his car and decided to investigate for himself. When he got out of the vehicle, he was shot at least three times from a Nissan car that was approximately 150 metres away – the length of one and a half football fields. The car then exploded. The entire event lasted three minutes, said the news agency.
The agency reported that the scientist’s car was hit by gunfire, followed by an explosion and more gunfire.
A state television outlet reported that the explosion happened first, followed by gunfire from attackers.
The technology is not actually that far-fetched, according to intelligence and security experts – but they are skeptical that such a sensitive and precise operation would have been carried out remotely.
