Iran says satellite-controlled gun was used to kill top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh
- Military commander says the weapon ‘zoomed in’ on the victim using AI and was so accurate that his wife, who was sitting only inches away, escaped injury
- The machine gun reportedly fired 13 rounds at Fakhrizadeh, who was accompanied by 11 bodyguards in separate cars at the time
A satellite-controlled machine gun was used in last week’s assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was killed in a gun and car bomb attack on the outskirts of Tehran on November 27, was driving on a motorway east of the capital when the weapon “zoomed in” on him “using artificial intelligence”, Mehr said on Sunday, quoting Commodore Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Various accounts of his death have emerged since the incident.
While early news reports said he was caught in a gunfight between his bodyguards, others said that he was fired at by a remote-controlled machine gun mounted on a pickup truck operated by someone who later fled the country.
Fadavi said on Sunday that the gun fired a total of 13 shots at Fakhrizadeh and managed to target him with such accuracy that his wife, sitting just inches away from him in the same vehicle, escaped injury.