이스라엘, A.I. 도움받아 원격조종으로 로봇을 사용해 추천킬로 떨어진 곳에서 정조준하여, 이란의 최고 핵무기개발 과학자, 모센 파크리자데를 살상하는 사건이 발생했다. 이스라엘은 아주 조그만 나라다. 전세계에 퍼져 살고있는, 어쩌면 Nomadic삶을 살고 있는 민족일수도 있겠다 싶게 역사를 보면 우리 대한민국의 역사만큼이나 주위 여러나라들로 부터 공격을 받고, 나라를 빼앗기고...순탄치만은 삶을 살아온 시온의 민족으로 본다.
우리 대한민국도 이와 비슷한 삶의 여정을, 특히 옛날에는 '때국놈들(중국사람들)'에게 계절마다 조공을 바쳐야말 살아남을수 있었던 과거가 있고, 20세기에는 선배님들이 나라를 잘 지키지 못해 일본의 식민지로 전락하여 수십년을 고생속에서 살아왔던 아픈 역사가 지금도 우리 한국사람들의 피속에는 흐르고 있다.
지나간 수치스런 역사를 배웠으면, 다시는 그러한 수모를 당하지 않을려면, 조국을 주위의 우리나라를 괴롭혔던 나라들을 이기는 방법은, 현대사회에서는, 무엇보다 경제적으로 외교적으로 강력한 나라를 만들도록 노력을 해야한다. 이스라엘민족은 그러한 자질을 갖고 있으며, 충분히 적절히 잘 발휘하고 있는 것으로 나는 이해하고있다.
우리나라의 개인별 지능지수는 세계 어느나라 인종과 비교해도 앞설지언정 뒤쳐지지는 않을 훌륭한, 명석한 두뇌를 갖고있다. 여기서 옛날 지금의 대한민국을 창설하신 대통령 "이승만 박사"께서 해방을 맞이한 아주 중요한 시점에서 이익집단을 만들어 시기질투하고 싸울때 서로 치고박고 싸울때, 호소하셨던 말씀이 생각난다.
"뭉치면 살고 헤여지면 죽는다"라는.
현재 우리나라의 경제력 군사력 그리고 인구수를 이스라엘과 비교하면, 우리나라는 엄청나게 큰 대국으로 볼수있는 큰 나라다. 그런데도 국제무대에서 큰소리한번, 필요시 군사력을 활용할수있는 뱃보도 없었고, 특히 박정희 대통령같은 우리민족을 위한 애국적 지도자도 없었던것으로 나는 확언한다.
이스라엘과 이란은 인구면에서 국가의 경제규모에서 비교가 안되는 격차가 크다. 그러나 좀 과장되게 표현하면 '코딱지'만한 이스라엘은 전부 모슬렘 국가로 둘러쌓여 있어, 모슬렘국가들이 협동 작전을 잘세워 서로 협력하여 동시에 공격을 하면 금방 나라가 없어질 정도의 힘(?)없는 나라로 볼수있다.
여기서 나는 한나라를 움직이는 지도자의 애국심과 뚝심, 용기, 그리고 리더쉽이 가장 중요한 덕목으로, 나라의 운명을 좌우 한다고 믿는다.
며칠전 문재인 좌파 정부는, 우리 한국이 독자적으로 기술개발한 'SLBM '탄도 미사일을 개발했다고 자화자찬에 하루종일 자랑질 했었다. 세계 7번째로 신무기를 개발하고, 어쩌고 떠들어 대는... 문제는 국가를 책임지고 운영하는 대통령의 애국심과 적을 꼼짝 못하게 때로는 선제공격도 마다하지 말아야 하는데 뚝심, 그런 의지, 그리고 국가와 국민을 지키겠다는 뱃보와 용기를 한번도 본적이 없었고, 반대로 계속 얻어 터지기만 하는 병신짖 하는것은 여러번 봤었다.
https://m.khan.co.kr/politics/defense-diplomacy/article/202109152124015
이스라엘은 수천킬로 떨어져있는 이란의 핵개발 시설을, 그들이 개발한 또는 미국으로 부터 도입하여 사용하고 있는 탄도미사일을 이용하여, 때려 부시는 용맹성을 보여 줬었고, 이에 대해 'Iran'을 포함 인근의 모슬렘 국가들은 반격한번 못하고 그대로 당하고 말았었다.
지금 우리대한민국은, 이스라엘을 둘러싸고 있는 모슬렘국가들이 하는 바보짖 행동을 하고 있는 추한, 연약한 꼬락서니를 보여주고 있을 뿐이다. 간첩 문재인은 대한민국 대통령으로 군림해온지가 벌써 5년에 가까워온다. 그사이 그가 우리나라를 적으로 부터 지키기위해 한일은 무엇이며, 국가 위상을 위해서 한일은 아무것도 없다.
우리의 주적인 북한은 우리와 모든면에서 비교가 안돼게 가난하고 약한것을 알기에, 김정은 Regime의 밑둥을 한방치면 쓰러질 초라한 나라인데, 그렇게 못돼게 굴어도 한마디 경고나 뽄때를 보여준적없고, 계속 김정은, 김여정의 폭거에 찍소리 한마디 못하고 당하기만 해왔다.
핵무기는 무서워할 존재가 못된다. 만약에 김정은이가 핵무기를 사용하겠다면, 그날로 그왕조는 끝장을 보게 될것이기 때문임을 잘아고 있다는점이다. 오직 위협용이라는 것을.
이스라엘이 이렇게 당하고 있는 대한민국을 보면서 "병신들 신무기 개발하면 뭐할거며, 국민들이 힘들고, 어렵게 쌓아놓은 경제적 Power를 정작 써야 할곳에는 꼼짝 못하고 오히려 읍소하는 병신정권을 보면서..... 혀를 끌끌 찰것이다".
왜 국민들과 나라를 위협하는 그쫄개무리들에게 실력행사를 못하는가다. 얼마전에는 개성에 수백억원을 들여 건설해놓은 '남북연락 사무소'건물을 맘데로 폭파해 버렸다. 수시로 조공(?)을 국민몰래 바치고 있고, 심지어는 이북에서 온 정보를 활용했다고, 임종석 이인영같은 빨갱이놈들은 지들 맘데로 저작권료를 강제징수하여 그들 주머니를 채우고 있는 봉이 김선달같은 짖을 하는데도 이를 제지하는 정치꾼놈들이, 국민들이 하나도 보이지 않는다.
한나라가 국력을 키우고, 군사력을 키우고, 산업발전을 하고,경제력을 키우는 근본이유는 자국민들을 보호하기위함에서고, 그다음으로는 나라밖의 불법 세력이 나라의 안보를 위협할때는 당한것 그이상으로 목표지점을 향해서 핀세트 타격을 가하고 전투테세를 갖추기위해서다. 이렇게 할수있는 지도자가 진정 대통령인 것이다. 지금의 문재인은 대통령이 아니라 국민들 괴롭히는 악마일 뿐이다.
이스라엘이 아랍국들과 당당히 싸울때는, 그에 따르는 희생이 있어왔다. 그게 전쟁이고, 살길을 찾는길인데, 문재인 어벙이는 단 하나의 희생도 없이 완벽한 승리(?)추구하는 이상주의자여서인지?아니면 김정은이가 무서워서인지? .... 오죽했으면 "삻은 소대가리"라는 치욕적인 욕설을 들으면서도 한마디 응수를 못했을까마는.... 그것은 문재인 자신뿐만이 아니고 5천만 국민들을 같이 싸잡아서 비웃거나 겁을 주는 짖이다.
나라의 정보를 책임지고 있는 국정원장의 행색이 너무도 초라하다. "조성은"이라는 변절자 여자와 식사를 했다는것을 자랑삼아 떠벌리고 있는, 전직 가발장수가 어떻게 국정원장질을 할수 있단 말인가. 문재인의 인사정책이 이정도 밖에 안된다는것을 알고는 있었지만.
이스라엘의 정보책임자, 모사의 수장이 이런 뉴스를 접하면서, 박지원이를 비웃기전에, 먼저 북괴와의 정보싸움에서 '과연 승리는 고사하고 얻어 터지고 나라가 쑥대밭이 되지는 않을까?'라고 혀를 끌끌 찼을 것이다.
문재인은 이스라엘의 지도자처럼, 국력을 한껏 필요시 발휘할수있는 '뱃보'를 활용하여, 함부로 경거망동하지 못하게 모든 조치를 취하라.
한가지 분명한것은 우리의 정보력은, 박지원필요없이, 훨씬 북쪽아이들보다 앞서있고, 필요시에는 미국과 일본의 정보력도 협조받아 핀센트 타격을 할수있는 능력이 크다는점을 적절하게 활용해서 우리나라와 국민들을 보호하라.
https://www.chosun.com/international/us/2021/09/17/QECQ6O4F6FCWVOF7U6EHMPLBGU/
문재인왈, "우리는 계속해서 김정은 Regime에게 계속 퍼주어야 한다고 강조한 말을 들으면서, 간첩 문재인의 존재감을 또한번 확인 했었다.
지난해 11월 27일 이란 수도 테헤란 동부 소도시 압사르에서 발생한 핵과학자 모센 파크리자데 암살 현장. 자동차 운전석 앞유리에 총알 자국이 선명하다. 압사르=로이터 연합뉴스
이스라엘 정보당국이 지난해 11월 인공지능(AI)이 부착된 원격 조정 로봇을 이용해 이란 최고의 핵과학자를 살해한 것으로 알려졌다. 최첨단 기술이 적국의 암살 공작에 활용되고 있다는 우려가 나오고 있다.
18일(현지시간) 미국 일간 뉴욕타임스(NYT)에 따르면 지난해 11월 27일 테헤란 동부 인근 도시 압사르에서 이란 핵과학자인 모센 파크리자데를 향해 기관총 공격을 한 것은 그의 얼굴을 인식해 정밀 타격한 인공지능(AI) 로봇이었다고 전했다.
‘이란 핵개발의 아버지’라 불리는 파크리자데는 이란 국방부 연구ㆍ혁신기구(SPND) 책임자(차관)로 근무하면서 1999년부터 2003년까지 이란이 진행한 핵무기 개발 계획인 ‘아마드 프로젝트’를 주도한 것으로 알려졌다. 유엔 안전보장이사회는 2006년 이란에 대한 제재의 일환으로 파크리자데의 자산을 동결하기도 했다.
이란 핵개발의 중추적 역할을 맡고 있는 국방부 연구 혁신기구(SNPD) 책임자인 모센 파크리자데. 로이터 연합뉴스
암살 당일 파크리자데는 부인과 함께 카스피해 인근 별장에서 압사르의 시골집으로 자신의 검은색 닛산 세단을 타고 이동하던 중이었다. 14년간 암살 위협에 시달려왔던 그는 이날 이란 정보국의 암살 가능성 경고에도 경호원들의 무장차량 대신 직접 차를 몰았다. 이는 보안규정 위반이었지만, 평소 이를 부담스럽게 여겼던 그는 비무장한 자신의 차량을 택했다. 대신 그의 차 앞 뒤로 4~7대의 경호차량이 따라붙었다.
오후3시30분께 그의 차가 고속도로에서 빠져 나와 압사르의 길로 들어서자 길가에 서 있던 파란색 닛산 트럭에서 총격이 시작됐다. 공격에는 채 1분이 걸리지 않았고, 총탄 15발이 발사됐다. 이중 3발 이상이 파크리자데를 정확하게 겨냥했고, 파크리자데는 인근 병원으로 급히 옮겨졌지만 목숨을 잃었다. 조수석에 타고 있던 그의 부인은 살았다.
이란의 수도 테헤란에서 지난해 11월 30일 이란 최고 핵과학자인 모센 파크리자데의 장례 행사가 거행되고 있다. UPI 연합뉴스
당시에 범인이나 살해 배후 등이 알려지지 않은 채 사건은 미궁에 빠졌다. 길가 폐쇄회로(CC)TV 등도 모두 멈춰있었다. 하지만 당시 사고 현장에 있던 트럭에 적재된 방수포와 건축 자재 사이에 7.62㎜구경 저격용 기관총이 달린 원격 제어 로봇이 있었다고 NYT는 전했다. 이 로봇은 1,609㎞가량(1,000마일) 떨어진 곳에서 원격으로 조정됐으며, 파크리자데의 얼굴을 정확하게 인식해 조준 사격을 한 것으로 파악됐다.
NYT는 “이스라엘 정보기관 모사드가 무게가 약 1톤에 이르는 기관총과 로봇, 부속품 등을 작은 부품으로 분해해 이란으로 밀반입한 뒤 비밀리에 재조립했다”며 “과거 테러 방식과 달리 요원 투입 없이 최첨단 기술로만 표적을 암살했다”고 전했다. 트럭은 임무 수행 후 자동 폭파됐다.
이스라엘은 이란의 핵개발을 저지하기 위해 이란의 핵 관련 주요 인물 암살을 모의해왔다. 지난 2010~2012년에는 이란 핵과학자 4명이 자동차에 부착된 폭탄 공격이나 괴한의 총격 등으로 잇따라 목숨을 잃었다.
NYT는 “과거에는 요원을 안전하게 구출하기 위한 계획이 필수였지만, 이제 그럴 필요가 없어졌다”라며 “킬러 로봇의 등장은 모사드의 첩보 셈법을 근본적으로 바꿨다”고 전했다.
Ronen Bergman and
Iran’s top nuclear scientist woke up an hour before dawn, as he did most days, to study Islamic philosophy before his day began.
That afternoon, he and his wife would leave their vacation home on the Caspian Sea and drive to their country house in Absard, a bucolic town east of Tehran, where they planned to spend the weekend.
Iran’s intelligence service had warned him of a possible assassination plot, but the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, had brushed it off.
Convinced that Mr. Fakhrizadeh was leading Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb, Israel had wanted to kill him for at least 14 years. But there had been so many threats and plots that he no longer paid them much attention.
Despite his prominent position in Iran’s military establishment, Mr. Fakhrizadeh wanted to live a normal life. He craved small domestic pleasures: reading Persian poetry, taking his family to the seashore, going for drives in the countryside.
And, disregarding the advice of his security team, he often drove his own car to Absard instead of having bodyguards drive him in an armored vehicle. It was a serious breach of security protocol, but he insisted.
So shortly after noon on Friday, Nov. 27, he slipped behind the wheel of his black Nissan Teana sedan, his wife in the passenger seat beside him, and hit the road.
Caspian Sea
Sari
Babol
Rostamkala
Amol
Start of
convoy’s
route
IRAN
Location
of U-turn
Tehran
Site of
assassination
Absard
10 miles
An Elusive Target
Since 2004, when the Israeli government ordered its foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the agency had been carrying out a campaign of sabotage and cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear fuel enrichment facilities. It was also methodically picking off the experts thought to be leading Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Since 2007, its agents had assassinated five Iranian nuclear scientists and wounded another. Most of the scientists worked directly for Mr. Fakhrizadeh (pronounced fah-KREE-zah-deh) on what Israeli intelligence officials said was a covert program to build a nuclear warhead, including overcoming the substantial technical challenges of making one small enough to fit atop one of Iran’s long-range missiles.
Israeli agents had also killed the Iranian general in charge of missile development and 16 members of his team.
But the man Israel said led the bomb program was elusive.
In 2009, a hit team was waiting for Mr. Fakhrizadeh at the site of a planned assassination in Tehran, but the operation was called off at the last moment. The plot had been compromised, the Mossad suspected, and Iran had laid an ambush.
This time they were going to try something new.
Iranian agents working for the Mossad had parked a blue Nissan Zamyad pickup truck on the side of the road connecting Absard to the main highway. The spot was on a slight elevation with a view of approaching vehicles. Hidden beneath tarpaulins and decoy construction material in the truck bed was a 7.62-mm sniper machine gun.
Around 1 p.m., the hit team received a signal that Mr. Fakhrizadeh, his wife and a team of armed guards in escort cars were about to leave for Absard, where many of Iran’s elite have second homes and vacation villas.
The assassin, a skilled sniper, took up his position, calibrated the gun sights, cocked the weapon and lightly touched the trigger.
He was nowhere near Absard, however. He was peering into a computer screen at an undisclosed location more than 1,000 miles away. The entire hit squad had already left Iran.
Reports of a Killing
The news reports from Iran that afternoon were confusing, contradictory and mostly wrong.
A team of assassins had waited alongside the road for Mr. Fakhrizadeh to drive by, one report said. Residents heard a big explosion followed by intense machine gun fire, said another. A truck exploded ahead of Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s car, then five or six gunmen jumped out of a nearby car and opened fire. A social media channel affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps reported an intense gun battle between Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards and as many as a dozen attackers. Several people were killed, witnesses said.
One of the most far-fetched accounts emerged a few days later.
Several Iranian news organizations reported that the assassin was a killer robot, and that the entire operation was conducted by remote control. These reports directly contradicted the supposedly eyewitness accounts of a gun battle between teams of assassins and bodyguards and reports that some of the assassins had been arrested or killed.
Iranians mocked the story as a transparent effort to minimize the embarrassment of the elite security force that failed to protect one of the country’s most closely guarded figures.
“Why don’t you just say Tesla built the Nissan, it drove by itself, parked by itself, fired the shots and blew up by itself?” one hard-line social media account said.
Thomas Withington, an electronic warfare analyst, told the BBC that the killer robot theory should be taken with “a healthy pinch of salt,” and that Iran’s description appeared to be little more than a collection of “cool buzzwords.”
Except this time there really was a killer robot.
The straight-out-of-science-fiction story of what really happened that afternoon and the events leading up to it, published here for the first time, is based on interviews with American, Israeli and Iranian officials, including two intelligence officials familiar with the details of the planning and execution of the operation, and statements Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s family made to the Iranian news media.
The operation’s success was the result of many factors: serious security failures by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, extensive planning and surveillance by the Mossad, and an insouciance bordering on fatalism on the part of Mr. Fakhrizadeh.
But it was also the debut test of a high-tech, computerized sharpshooter kitted out with artificial intelligence and multiple-camera eyes, operated via satellite and capable of firing 600 rounds a minute.
The souped-up, remote-controlled machine gun now joins the combat drone in the arsenal of high-tech weapons for remote targeted killing. But unlike a drone, the robotic machine gun draws no attention in the sky, where a drone could be shot down, and can be situated anywhere, qualities likely to reshape the worlds of security and espionage.
‘Remember That Name’
Preparations for the assassination began after a series of meetings toward the end of 2019 and in early 2020 between Israeli officials, led by the Mossad director, Yossi Cohen, and high-ranking American officials, including President Donald J. Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the C.I.A. director, Gina Haspel.
Israel had paused the sabotage and assassination campaign in 2012, when the United States began negotiations with Iran leading to the 2015 nuclear agreement. Now that Mr. Trump had abrogated that agreement, the Israelis wanted to resume the campaign to try to thwart Iran’s nuclear progress and force it to accept strict constraints on its nuclear program.
In late February, Mr. Cohen presented the Americans with a list of potential operations, including the killing of Mr. Fakhrizadeh. Mr. Fakhrizadeh had been at the top of Israel’s hit list since 2007, and the Mossad had never taken its eyes off him.
In 2018, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, held a news conference to show off documents the Mossad had stolen from Iran’s nuclear archives. Arguing that they proved that Iran still had an active nuclear weapons program, he mentioned Mr. Fakhrizadeh by name several times.
“Remember that name,” he said. “Fakhrizadeh.”
The American officials briefed about the assassination plan in Washington supported it, according to an official who was present at the meeting.
Both countries were encouraged by Iran’s relatively tepid response to the American assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian military commander killed in a U.S. drone strike with the help of Israeli intelligence in January 2020. If they could kill Iran’s top military leader with little blowback, it signaled that Iran was either unable or reluctant to respond more forcefully.
The surveillance of Mr. Fakhrizadeh moved into high gear.
As the intelligence poured in, the difficulty of the challenge came into focus: Iran had also taken lessons from the Suleimani killing, namely that their top officials could be targeted. Aware that Mr. Fakhrizadeh led Israel’s most-wanted list, Iranian officials had locked down his security.
His security details belonged to the elite Ansar unit of the Revolutionary Guards, heavily armed and well trained, who communicated via encrypted channels. They accompanied Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s movements in convoys of four to seven vehicles, changing the routes and timing to foil possible attacks. And the car he drove himself was rotated among four or five at his disposal.
Israel had used a variety of methods in the earlier assassinations. The first nuclear scientist on the list was poisoned in 2007. The second, in 2010, was killed by a remotely detonated bomb attached to a motorcycle, but the planning had been excruciatingly complex, and an Iranian suspect was caught. He confessed and was executed.
After that debacle, the Mossad switched to simpler, in-person killings. In each of the next four assassinations, from 2010 to 2012, hit men on motorcycles sidled up beside the target’s car in Tehran traffic and either shot him through the window or attached a sticky-bomb to the car door, then sped off.
But Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s armed convoy, on the lookout for such attacks, made the motorcycle method impossible.
The planners considered detonating a bomb along Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s route, forcing the convoy to a halt so it could be attacked by snipers. That plan was shelved because of the likelihood of a gangland-style gun battle with many casualties.
The idea of a pre-positioned, remote-controlled machine gun was proposed, but there were a host of logistical complications and myriad ways it could go wrong. Remote-controlled machine guns existed and several armies had them, but their bulk and weight made them difficult to transport and conceal, and they had only been used with operators nearby.
Time was running out.
By the summer, it looked as if Mr. Trump, who saw eye to eye on Iran with Mr. Netanyahu, could lose the American election. His likely successor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., had promised to reverse Mr. Trump’s policies and return to the 2015 nuclear agreement that Israel had vigorously opposed.
If Israel was going to kill a top Iranian official, an act that had the potential to start a war, it needed the assent and protection of the United States. That meant acting before Mr. Biden could take office. In Mr. Netanyahu’s best-case scenario, the assassination would derail any chance of resurrecting the nuclear agreement even if Mr. Biden won.
The Scientist
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh grew up in a conservative family in the holy city of Qom, the theological heart of Shia Islam. He was 18 when the Islamic revolution toppled Iran’s monarchy, a historical reckoning that fired his imagination.
He set out to achieve two dreams: to become a nuclear scientist and to take part in the military wing of the new government. As a symbol of his devotion to the revolution, he wore a silver ring with a large, oval red agate, the same type worn by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and by General Suleimani.
He joined the Revolutionary Guards and climbed the ranks to general. He earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Isfahan University of Technology with a dissertation on “identifying neutrons,” according to Ali Akbar Salehi, the former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency and a longtime friend and colleague.
He led the missile development program for the Guards and pioneered the country’s nuclear program. As research director for the Defense Ministry, he played a key role in developing homegrown drones and, according to two Iranian officials, traveled to North Korea to join forces on missile development. At the time of his death, he was deputy defense minister.
“In the field of nuclear and nanotechnology and biochemical war, Mr. Fakhrizadeh was a character on par with Qassim Suleimani but in a totally covert way,” Gheish Ghoreishi, who has advised Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Arab affairs, said in an interview.
When Iran needed sensitive equipment or technology that was prohibited under international sanctions, Mr. Fakhrizadeh found ways to obtain them.
“He had created an underground network from Latin America to North Korea and Eastern Europe to find the parts that we needed,” Mr. Ghoreishi said.
Mr. Ghoreishi and a former senior Iranian official said that Mr. Fakhrizadeh was known as a workaholic. He had a serious demeanor, demanded perfection from his staff and had no sense of humor, they said. He seldom took time off. And he eschewed media attention.
Most of his professional life was top secret, better known to the Mossad than to most Iranians.
His career may have been a mystery even to his children. His sons said in a television interview that they had tried to piece together what their father did based on his sporadic comments. They said they had guessed that he was involved in the production of medical drugs.
When international nuclear inspectors came to call, they were told that he was unavailable, his laboratories and testing grounds off limits. Concerned about Iran’s stonewalling, the United Nations Security Council froze Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s assets as part of a package of sanctions on Iran in 2006.
Although he was considered the father of Iran’s nuclear program, he never attended the talks leading to the 2015 agreement.
The black hole that was Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s career was a major reason that even when the agreement was completed, questions remained about whether Iran still had a nuclear weapons program and how far along it was.
Iran has steadfastly insisted that its nuclear program was for purely peaceful purposes and that it had no interest in developing a bomb. Ayatollah Khamenei had even issued an edict declaring that such a weapon would violate Islamic law.
But investigators with the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded in 2011 that Iran had “carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device.” They also said that while Iran had dismantled its focused effort to build a bomb in 2003, significant work on the project had continued.
According to the Mossad, the bomb-building program had simply been deconstructed and its component parts scattered among different programs and agencies, all under Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s direction.
In 2008, when President George W. Bush was visiting Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert played him a recording of a conversation Israeli officials said took place a short time before between a man they identified as Mr. Fakhrizadeh and a colleague. According to three people who say they heard the recording, Mr. Fakhrizadeh spoke explicitly about his ongoing effort to develop a nuclear warhead.
A spokesman for Mr. Bush did not reply to a request for comment. The New York Times could not independently confirm the existence of the recording or its contents.
Programming a Hit
A killer robot profoundly changes the calculus for the Mossad.
The organization has a longstanding rule that if there is no rescue, there is no operation, meaning a foolproof plan to get the operatives out safely is essential. Having no agents in the field tips the equation in favor of the operation.
But a massive, untested, computerized machine gun presents a string of other problems.
The first is how to get the weapon in place.
Israel chose a special model of a Belgian-made FN MAG machine gun attached to an advanced robotic apparatus, according to an intelligence official familiar with the plot. The official said the system was not unlike the off-the-rack Sentinel 20 manufactured by the Spanish defense contractor Escribano.
But the machine gun, the robot, its components and accessories together weigh about a ton. So the equipment was broken down into its smallest possible parts and smuggled into the country piece by piece, in various ways, routes and times, then secretly reassembled in Iran.
The robot was built to fit in the bed of a Zamyad pickup, a common model in Iran. Cameras pointing in multiple directions were mounted on the truck to give the command room a full picture not just of the target and his security detail, but of the surrounding environment. Finally, the truck was packed with explosives so it could be blown to bits after the kill, destroying all evidence.
There were further complications in firing the weapon. A machine gun mounted on a truck, even a parked one, will shake after each shot’s recoil, changing the trajectory of subsequent bullets.
Also, even though the computer communicated with the control room via satellite, sending data at the speed of light, there would be a slight delay: What the operator saw on the screen was already a moment old, and adjusting the aim to compensate would take another moment, all while Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s car was in motion.
The time it took for the camera images to reach the sniper and for the sniper’s response to reach the machine gun, not including his reaction time, was estimated to be 1.6 seconds, enough of a lag for the best-aimed shot to go astray.
The A.I. was programmed to compensate for the delay, the shake and the car’s speed.
Another challenge was to determine in real time that it was Mr. Fakhrizadeh driving the car and not one of his children, his wife or a bodyguard.
Israel lacks the surveillance capabilities in Iran that it has in other places, like Gaza, where it uses drones to identify a target before a strike. A drone large enough to make the trip to Iran could be easily shot down by Iran’s Russian-made antiaircraft missiles. And a drone circling the quiet Absard countryside could expose the whole operation.
The solution was to station a fake disabled car, resting on a jack with a wheel missing, at a junction on the main road where vehicles heading for Absard had to make a U-turn, some three quarters of a mile from the kill zone. That vehicle contained another camera.
At dawn Friday, the operation was put into motion. Israeli officials gave the Americans a final heads up.
The blue Zamyad pickup was parked on the shoulder of Imam Khomeini Boulevard. Investigators later found that security cameras on the road had been disabled.
The Drive
As the convoy left the city of Rostamkala on the Caspian coast, the first car carried a security detail. It was followed by the unarmored black Nissan driven by Mr. Fakhrizadeh, with his wife, Sadigheh Ghasemi, at his side. Two more security cars followed.
The security team had warned Mr. Fakhrizadeh that day of a threat against him and asked him not to travel, according to his son Hamed Fakhrizadeh and Iranian officials.
But Mr. Fakhrizadeh said he had a university class to teach in Tehran the next day, his sons said, and he could not do it remotely.
Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Supreme National Council, later told the Iranian media that intelligence agencies even had knowledge of the possible location of an assassination attempt, though they were uncertain of the date.
The Times could not verify whether they had such specific information or whether the claim was an effort at damage control after an embarrassing intelligence failure.
Iran had already been shaken by a series of high-profile attacks in recent months that in addition to killing leaders and damaging nuclear facilities made it clear that Israel had an effective network of collaborators inside Iran.
The recriminations and paranoia among politicians and intelligence officials only intensified after the assassination. Rival intelligence agencies — under the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards — blamed each other.
A former senior Iranian intelligence official said that he heard that Israel had even infiltrated Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s security detail, which had knowledge of last-minute changes to his movement, the route and the time.
But Mr. Shamkhani said there had been so many threats over the years that Mr. Fakhrizadeh did not take them seriously.
He refused to ride in an armored car and insisted on driving one of his cars himself. When he drove with his wife, he would ask the bodyguards to drive a separate car behind him instead of riding with them, according to three people familiar with his habits.
Mr. Fakhrizadeh may have also found the idea of martyrdom attractive.
“Let them kill,” he said in a recording Mehr News, a conservative outlet, published in November. “Kill as much as they want, but we won’t be grounded. They’ve killed scientists, so we have hope to become a martyr even though we don’t go to Syria and we don’t go to Iraq.”
Even if Mr. Fakhrizadeh accepted his fate, it was not clear why the Revolutionary Guards assigned to protect him went along with such blatant security lapses. Acquaintances said only that he was stubborn and insistent.
If Mr. Fakhrizadeh had been sitting in the rear, it would have been much harder to identify him and to avoid killing anyone else. If the car had been armored and the windows bulletproofed, the hit squad would have had to use special ammunition or a powerful bomb to destroy it, making the plan far more complicated.
The Strike
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., the motorcade arrived at the U-turn on Firuzkouh Road. Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s car came to a near halt, and he was positively identified by the operators, who could also see his wife sitting beside him.
Location of decoy car
Firuzkouh Road
Direction of convoy
Imam Khomeini Boulevard
Location of pickup
truck with machine gun
500 feet
The convoy turned right on Imam Khomeini Boulevard, and the lead car then zipped ahead to the house to inspect it before Mr. Fakhrizadeh arrived. Its departure left Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s car fully exposed.
The convoy slowed down for a speed bump just before the parked Zamyad. A stray dog began crossing the road.
The machine gun fired a burst of bullets, hitting the front of the car below the windshield. It is not clear if these shots hit Mr. Fakhrizadeh but the car swerved and came to a stop.
The shooter adjusted the sights and fired another burst, hitting the windshield at least three times and Mr. Fakhrizadeh at least once in the shoulder. He stepped out of the car and crouched behind the open front door.
According to Iran’s Fars News, three more bullets tore into his spine. He collapsed on the road.
The first bodyguard arrived from a chase car: Hamed Asghari, a national judo champion, holding a rifle. He looked around for the assailant, seemingly confused.
Ms. Ghasemi ran out to her husband. “They want to kill me and you must leave,” he told her, according to his sons.
She sat on the ground and held his head on her lap, she told Iranian state television.
The blue Zamyad exploded.
That was the only part of the operation that did not go as planned.
The explosion was intended to rip the robot to shreds so the Iranians could not piece together what had happened. Instead, most of the equipment was hurled into the air and then fell to the ground, damaged beyond repair but largely intact.
The Revolutionary Guards’ assessment — that the attack was carried out by a remote-controlled machine gun “equipped with an intelligent satellite system” using artificial intelligence — was correct.
The entire operation took less than a minute. Fifteen bullets were fired.
Iranian investigators noted that not one of them hit Ms. Ghasemi, seated inches away, accuracy that they attributed to the use of facial recognition software.
Hamed Fakhrizadeh was at the family home in Absard when he received a distress call from his mother. He arrived within minutes to what he described as a scene of “full-on war.” Smoke and fog clouded his vision, and he could smell blood.
“It was not a simple terrorist attack for someone to come and fire a bullet and run,” he said later on state television. “His assassination was far more complicated than what you know and think. He was unknown to the Iranian public, but he was very well known to those who are the enemy of Iran’s development.”
Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman contributed reporting.
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