Mere days after the US and Iran showed very tentative signs of some diplomatic progress being possible (and hours after Netanyahu's "Rouhani's a wolf in sheep's clothing" comments [4]), The Telegraph reports [5] that Mojtaba Ahmadi, who served as commander of the Cyber War Headquarters for Iran, was found dead (with two bullets to the heart) in a wooded area north-west of Tehran. This follows the assassination of five Iranian nuclear scientists and the country's ballistic missile program head since 2007 - all blamed on Israel's Mossad. An eyewitness said two people on a motorbike had been involved and "the extent of the injuries indicated he had been assassinated from close range." Western officials (the 'essential' ones) said the information was still being assessed.
Mojtaba Ahmadi, who served as commander of the Cyber War Headquarters, was found dead in a wooded area near the town of Karaj, north-west of the capital, Tehran.
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Ahmadi was last seen leaving his home for work on Saturday. He was later found with two bullets in the heart, according to Alborz, a website linked to the Revolutionary Guard Corps. “I could see two bullet wounds on his body and the extent of his injuries indicated that he had been assassinated from a close range with a pistol,” an eyewitness told the website.
The commander of the local police said that two people on a motorbike had been involved in the assassination.
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the Imam Hassan Mojtaba division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Ahmadi’s death was being investigated. It warned against speculating “prematurely about the identity of those responsible for the killing”.
Western officials said the information was still being assessed...
The last victim of a known assassination was Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemist who worked in the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, who died when an explosive device blew up on his car in January last year.
The death of Ahmadi, a leading specialist in cyber defences, could be an extension of this campaign of subterfuge. Iran has been accused of carrying out a number of cyber attacks detected in the West.
Recall what Russia's Foreign Minister said ealier today: "Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Syria recently got shipments of components for chemical weapons, increasing likelihood of more provocations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says in Moscow after talks with his Indian counterpart, Salman Khurshid." We didn't have long to wait.