Iran Accuses Israel of Killing Revolutionary Guard Colonel

On Monday, the commander in chief of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), General Hossein Salami, blamed Israel for the assassination of Colonel Sayyad Khodaei.

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"The martyrs killed by the Zionists are high-level martyrs with a higher status because they were killed by the worst people," Salami said in a meeting with the victim's family.

"The enemy had pursued him for years, from the White House all the way to Tel Aviv, house to house, to kill him," Gen. Salami said, adding that "God willing, we will avenge his death."

On May 22, gunmen traveling on a motorcycle shot and killed the IRGC colonel while he was in his car in front of his house in Tehran. Khodaei had fought in Syria as part of the Quds Force, the body responsible for the Revolutionary Guards' operations on foreign soil.

Previously, the New York Times revealed that Israel informed the United States it was responsible for the colonel's death, which was posed as "a warning to Iran to stop the operations of a covert group within the Quds force, known as Unit 840."

Iran has accused Israel of carrying out assassinations against members of its security forces and nuclear scientists, as well as trying to sabotage Iranian facilities. The colonel's assassination occurred as negotiations to save the 2015 nuclear pact gained momentum after the "impasse" in the talks in mid-March.

In fact, one of the obstacles to the agreement is Iran's insistence that the U.S. lift sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards, the organization to which the murdered colonel belonged.