Iran will avenge the killing of a colonel of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), President Ebrahim Raisi, pledged on Monday ahead of a trip to Oman, the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported.

Raisi accused “imperialist powers” of being behind the assassination, which was carried out on Sunday in a neighbourhood in the south-east of the Iranian capital. The term is used in Iran as a reference to Israel and the United States.

The victim, Hassan Sayad Khodayari, was reportedly a member of the Quds Force, one of the five branches of the IRGC active in Syria.

His attackers fired five shots before fleeing on a motorcycle, according to the IRNA news agency.

They have not been detained and details of the attack remain unclear.

Khodayari’s precise role in the IRGC is also not known.

He is reported to have been a defender of the sanctuary, a term used to describe members of elite units protecting Shiite shrines outside Iran.

He was shot in his own small car and was without bodyguards, according to reports.

Senior IRGC personnel usually travel under escort and in armoured vehicles.

The IRGC reported on Sunday that they had arrested suspected members of a network of the Israeli secret service Mossad.

According to the IRGC website, rioters allegedly working for Mossad in Iran had been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and theft, among other things.

Israel has been considered Iran’s arch-enemy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

There were repeated reports of arrests, detentions and executions of suspected agents accused of cooperating with Mossad or the U.S. foreign intelligence service CIA. (dpa/NAN)

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