40. Iran vs Israel: Mossad Assassinates Iranian Mastermind (Ep 2)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Classified
Episode 40: Iran vs Israel: Mossad Assassinates Iranian Mastermind (Ep 2)
Release Date: April 22, 2025

Hosted by David McCloskey and Gordon Carrera

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Introduction

In Episode 40 of "The Rest Is Classified," hosts David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst turned spy novelist, and Gordon Carrera, a veteran security correspondent, delve into the high-stakes assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's foremost nuclear scientist. This episode meticulously unpacks the intricate web of espionage, intelligence operations, and the shadowy maneuvers between Israel and Iran that culminated in Fakhrizadeh's death.

Background on Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and Iran’s Nuclear Program

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was a pivotal figure in Iran's nuclear ambitions, holding dual roles as a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards and a respected university professor. His expertise was instrumental in advancing Iran's clandestine efforts to develop nuclear capabilities, making him a prime target for foreign intelligence agencies, particularly Israel's Mossad.

David McCloskey emphasizes Fakhrizadeh's significance:
"He is the man at the heart of Iran's nuclear program and played a key role in its clandestine efforts to smuggle parts for a bomb."
[02:28]

Israel’s Motivation and Mossad’s Strategy

Israel perceived Iran's nuclear advancements as an existential threat, prompting a long-term strategy to neutralize key figures within Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Fakhrizadeh became their top target amid a series of assassinations aimed at crippling Iran's nuclear capabilities.

David McCloskey discusses the continuity of Mossad's policy:
"We have a continuous policy of finding opportunities to go after some of these really senior Iranian scientists."
[03:23]

Following the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 and President Trump's assassination of Qasem Soleimani in early 2020, Israel saw an opportune moment to escalate their covert operations against Iran's nuclear operatives.

Planning the Assassination Operation

The assassination of Fakhrizadeh was marked by meticulous planning and technological innovation. Mossad engineers devised a remote-controlled robotic gun capable of operating from a significant distance, minimizing the risk to their operatives and reducing the likelihood of detection.

Gordon Carrera outlines the technological ingenuity involved:
"They come up with an extraordinary idea which is a remote-controlled satellite linked gun, a robotic gun."
[14:28]

The operation required extensive legwork, including smuggling equipment into Iran, likely through existing smuggling networks, and assembling the robotic gun on-site. The robotic gun, based on the Sentinel 20 system by a Spanish arms manufacturer, was outfitted with cameras providing 360-degree surveillance, ensuring precise targeting while avoiding collateral damage.

David McCloskey explains the setup:
"It's rigged up with cameras everywhere, so you can see probably three hundred and sixty degrees around this thing."
[17:11]

Execution of the Assassination on November 27, 2020

The fateful morning of November 27, 2020, saw Fakhrizadeh departing his country house in Absard, a serene area outside Tehran known for its picturesque landscapes. Despite multiple security threats and warnings against traveling, Fakhrizadeh opted to drive himself, a decision that ultimately exposed him to Mossad's meticulously positioned robotic gun.

David McCloskey narrates the operation’s execution:
"Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is driving and his wife is in the passenger seat."
[28:06]

As Fakhrizadeh navigated Imam Khomeini Boulevard, his convoy slowed at a speed bump—intentionally chosen by Mossad to ensure optimal conditions for the assassination. A Zamyad pickup truck camouflaged with construction equipment revealed the robotic gun, which fired a precise volley of bullets, ultimately striking Fakhrizadeh and leading to his death without harming his wife.

Gordon Carrera observes the precision of the attack:
"What's remarkable is the ability to move that gun because he comes out of the car... and kill him and not hurt his wife."
[35:10]

Aftermath and Reactions

Following the assassination, Fakhrizadeh was honored with a state funeral, symbolizing his status as a martyr within Iran. Despite the security lapse, Iran vowed to pursue those responsible, intensifying the already strained relations between Iran and Israel.

David McCloskey reflects on the funeral:
"Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is buried and put to rest."
[35:44]

Ethical and Efficacy Discussions

The hosts engage in a profound discussion on the ethical ramifications and the actual effectiveness of targeted killings. They question whether eliminating key individuals like Fakhrizadeh genuinely hampers Iran's nuclear ambitions or merely delays them without offering a strategic solution.

David McCloskey muses on the efficacy:
"The Iranians at this point have never been closer to a breakout capability. It's possible that these killings have slowed the program, but they certainly have not stopped it."
[45:07]

Gordon Carrera adds:
"Is it right to target these scientists? Does it work?"
[44:06]

The conversation highlights the moral ambiguity of such operations and the complex calculations behind them, including the justification rooted in self-defense and preemptive measures against perceived threats.

Future Implications: The Rise of Remote and AI-Assisted Assassinations

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to exploring the technological advancements exemplified by the assassination of Fakhrizadeh. The use of a remote-controlled robotic gun signifies a precursor to more autonomous weapon systems, blending AI and robotics to carry out precise, covert operations.

Gordon Carrera envisions the future:
"You could see the technology to make a weapon system like that actually fully autonomous, just using facial recognition rather than having a human remotely authorize it and physically pull the trigger."
[39:03]

The hosts discuss the potential for such technologies to evolve into "killer robots," capable of identifying and eliminating targets with minimal human intervention. This raises ethical concerns about the dehumanization of lethal decision-making processes and the potential for misuse in both military and civilian contexts.

David McCloskey warns:
"If someone can launch a drone or have a killer robot hidden somewhere and just wait for someone to pass who a facial recognition Software says, yep, that's the target... launch the drone, drop the bomb, fire the machine gun. This is the future."
[40:48]

Conclusion

The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh by Mossad marks a significant moment in modern espionage, showcasing the lengths to which intelligence agencies will go to neutralize perceived threats. While the operation demonstrated technological prowess and strategic finesse, it also opened a Pandora's box of ethical dilemmas and future warfare paradigms. The episode concludes with an open-ended reflection on the continuing shadow war between Israel and Iran, hinting at future developments and the evolving nature of covert operations.

Gordon Carrera closes the discussion:
"Maybe totally unresolved, let's end it and end our exploration into the life and times and death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and our journey into the shadow war between Israel and Iran."
[49:37]

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Notable Quotes

• David McCloskey:
  "He is the man at the heart of Iran's nuclear program and played a key role in its clandestine efforts to smuggle parts for a bomb."
  [02:28]

• Gordon Carrera:
  "They come up with an extraordinary idea which is a remote-controlled satellite linked gun, a robotic gun."
  [14:28]

• David McCloskey:
  "The Iranians at this point have never been closer to a breakout capability. It's possible that these killings have slowed the program, but they certainly have not stopped it."
  [45:07]

• Gordon Carrera:
  "You could see the technology to make a weapon system like that actually fully autonomous, just using facial recognition rather than having a human remotely authorize it and physically pull the trigger."
  [39:03]

• David McCloskey:
  "If someone can launch a drone or have a killer robot hidden somewhere and just wait for someone to pass who a facial recognition Software says, yep, that's the target... launch the drone, drop the bomb, fire the machine gun. This is the future."
  [40:48]

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Final Thoughts

Episode 40 of "The Rest Is Classified" offers an in-depth exploration of one of the most audacious and technologically sophisticated assassinations in recent history. Through expert analysis and riveting storytelling, David McCloskey and Gordon Carrera shed light on the complex interplay of intelligence work, international politics, and emerging technologies that define the clandestine struggles shaping our global landscape.

Transcript

[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

I have no idea. Tiana. Tiana.

[Gordon Carrera]

Tiana. We're not going to be sponsored by Nissan.

[David McCloskey]

This episode is brought to you by Nissan. Tiana.

[Gordon Carrera]

He slipped behind the wheel of his black Nissan Tiana sedan, his wife in the passenger seat beside him, and hit the road as the convoy left the Caspian coast. The first car carried a security detail. It was followed by the unarmoured black Nissan driven by Mr. Fakhrizade. Two more security cars followed. The security team had warned Mr. Fakhrizade that day of a threat against him and asked him not to travel. But Mr. Fakhrizade said he had a university class to teach in Tehran the next day and he could not do it remotely. Well, that's the definitive account of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's last morning, written by the journalists Ronan Bergman and Farnaz Fasihi from the New York Times. Welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm Gordon Carrera.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey.

[Gordon Carrera]

And we are looking at the story of the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on that day, November 27, 2020. As we heard last time, he is the man at the heart of Iran's nuclear program and we've explored how he played a key role in setting up that program in its clandestine efforts to smuggle the parts in for a bomb. How he's working both as a member of the Revolutionary Guards and as a university professor, as we heard, how Iran's enemies, particularly Israel, have identified him as a key player in that program. And they have been going after the scientists already. And there have been this spate of assassinations of scientists involved in different aspects of Iran's nuclear program. And now, as we approach November 2020, they've got Fakhrizadeh himself in their sights, haven't they?

[David McCloskey]

So he is certainly one of their top targets. And we should say, Gordon, that even though Mayor De Gan, the sort of the Mossad chief we talked about last time, who was so instrumental to really establishing this policy of targeted assassinations inside Tehran. So Dagan is not the Mossad chief anymore, but the Mossad chief at the time, Yossi Cohen, is a Dagan sort of acolyte, right, or protege. And he's been running the Iran portfolio in part for Dagan all the way back to 2004. So we have a sort of continuous policy of finding opportunities to go after some of these really senior Iranian scientists. And by 2020, as we'll see, the Israelis are at a point where they have a real opportunity to go after Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

[Gordon Carrera]

And worth just setting a bit of the international context at that time, because there had been, of course, a deal to put constraints around the Iran nuclear program, which had been signed in 20. But when President Trump in his first term pulled out of that deal, Iran started to push ahead with its program because there were no longer constraints about it. So there is also a kind of renewed desire, I think, to do something about it. And one of the things Israel is going to do is go after Fakhrizadeh. And now, as we'd looked at last time, the people around him had been killed, lots of people in his program. And so he's gonna have security to protect him. As we heard, when he's driving, he's got bodyguards, other cars, that kind of situation, it is a challenge, isn't it, to try and understand where you might get that opportunity to go after someone.

[David McCloskey]

And I think there's one other, I guess, event that's worth mentioning to set up why I think the Israelis believe this operation is worth the risk at the end of 2020. And that's that in early 2020, the US killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, their sort of Military Expeditionary Group. Right. He's killed in Baghdad. By the US by the US and there's really not a significant Iranian response to this. I mean, there's a sort of missile and rocket volley in response to it that does lead to some injuries, but it's not. It's not as much of a response, perhaps, as. As anyone might have expected. And so I think Fakhrizidi is a bigger fish to go after than many of the other scientists that the Israelis have targeted in the decade prior. And so I think the risk calculation is also being framed by the fact that Soleimani had just been killed months earlier. But to go after Fakhrizid, I mean, I think the way from just an operational standpoint listeners should think about this is you want to establish something called pattern of life, because you need to figure out how the target moves lives, what they do, what their habits are, what their routines are to find the vulnerability. Right. You don't start with a concept of how you kill somebody and then jam it into their life. You watch them if you can, and figure out where you might create an opportunity or exploit a vulnerability to go after them.

[Gordon Carrera]

And it seems pretty clear that he would have been a top collection target, right, for a long time for the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad. And they would have been collecting what, signals intelligence, they'd have been trying to get inside of communications, they'd have been trying to get agents close to him. And we won't know the exact details of that, but that's what we're talking about, isn't it?

[David McCloskey]

That's right.

[Gordon Carrera]

Is having as many different ways of understanding his life and his movements as possible.

[David McCloskey]

Well, and I think this is one of the central mysteries that for very good reasons has not come out in any of the actual reporting on this, is exactly how did the Israelis get insight into his routines and movements? Right. But what seems pretty clear from the way this killing was planned is that Mossad was in the guy's comms, right? They probably had access to phones, emails, you know, laptops, like they. They had access to electronics that were floating around him or that perhaps were even his, it seems to me. Yeah, and potentially for a long time before the hit, because I think they would have, again, we'll see some of the hints later on that they kind of knew this guy's routines really well. So it's not like they'd had this stuff for a couple weeks. They'd probably been watching him really closely. And in Iran, I mean, the way the Israelis talk about this kind of synthesis between sigint, signals intelligence and human intelligence is what Mossad calls hugent. Hugent, I guess, maybe as I. So it's the synthesis of both of them. So it's probably some combination of. There's somebody that Mossad recruited to get access to this guy's comms. Right. I guess you'd call it human enabled signals intelligence in many respects. Right. But we don't know. This remains a mystery, I think, exactly how they got access to it. In fact, the sort of penetration of Fakrizade and his inner circle was so complete and total that apparently there was actually a dispute in Mossad about the wisdom of killing him at all, because he was essentially an unwitting source because they had access to so much of his life that they could effectively glean a lot on sort of Iran's nuclear program plans and intentions, that kind of thing, just from watching him. Right. So apparently there was some dispute about this. And there's a great quote in some of Ronan Bergman's reporting. And he is a New York Times journalist and Israeli with exceptional access to the Mossad, who has written, I would say, the definitive account of this hit. And Bergman wrote Mossad breathed with the guy, referring to Fakhrizadeh. Woke up with him, slept with him, traveled with him. They would have smelled his aftershave every morning if he had used aftershave, which is a great little indication of how close you are, that you even know that this guy doesn't use aftershave, which I guess I would have assumed, too, given how bearded he is.

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, so we don't know much about him, as we said in the previous episode, but one thing we know is he doesn't use aftershave. So there's one of the few things we know.

[David McCloskey]

He's not a big shaver. No.

[Gordon Carrera]

But the picture we have of him is that he is not a soft target. I mean, he's got a security detail. He's got bodyguards all around him when he travels, when he moves, as we heard in that opening quote, he. He's got a car full of bodyguards with him. So he is taking the kind of precautions you'd expect someone to take in his position to avoid being the subject of one of these assassination attempts, knowing that sometimes it's happened with people driving up to cars, you know, with guns or with mines to attach to them.

[David McCloskey]

So the Mossad watches for a while, and they find what they think might be a vulnerability, which is as Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is driving from Tehran, so he's actually got a country house in Absard, which is a bit outside of the city. There's a vacation home up on the Caspian. And Fakhrizadeh likes to drive himself, which I can relate to that. I mean, why would he want to have a driver if he's driving? Especially if he's going up for kind of a personal weekend with his wife, family. Maybe the last thing you'd want is to be in the backseat while you've got this driver driving you there. Like you'd rather just drive yourself and. Well, of course we're talking about an assassination. I mean, in Fakhrizadeh's mind, I mean, he is on his home turf, driving between his houses in comfortable places that he has known for many, many years. But the fact that he's got this impulse to drive himself is really one of the things that's going to get him in trouble. And in particular it's this drive from his country house in Absard back to Tehran. Now, just a couple words on Absard. It's actually I've watched YouTube videos of drives around there. It's a very lovely place. It's a small town set into the mountains, full of apple and cherry orchards, modernist villas, Persian style palaces. I guess it's an elite escape from Tehran. Gordon. To spend the weekend. I don't know what's the British equivalent of getting out of. I'm trying to think London for the weekend.

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, three or four hours maybe. It's your Cornwall country house, Seabird, but you'd be lucky to do it in three or four hours even given what the traffic is like there. I don't know, Devon, Dorset, somewhere like that.

[David McCloskey]

Okay.

[Gordon Carrera]

Somewhere a bit out. What's the American equivalent? Jersey.

[David McCloskey]

I was trying to think about this. Yeah. So maybe it's the equivalent of a wealthy New Yorker driving from a home like on Martha's Vineyard into one of the suburbs in Connecticut outside New York or something like that. Again, I don't. The traffic could probably be really nasty there. But the point being is this is, this is a casual day for Mohsin. Fucker is a day, right. He's not in a war zone. He's on a three to four hour drive on open roads that he knows between his homes. But what's critical from a really an operational planning perspective from Assad is that they've got a guy who's going to be driving his own car moving down a road and it's not going to be a really packed city road in the crush of Tehran traffic. Which Tehran traffic, by the way, is absolutely horrendous and probably contributed and for Cruise today would remember this, contributed to the death of some of his friends when they were stuck in traffic and would have basically magnetic explosives attached to their car. Or someone would pull up on a motorcycle and shoot them dead as they sit in rush hour traffic. So he's going to be moving down a pretty open country road and Mossad has a vulnerability and now they have to come up with a plan to exploit that vulnerability. And one option is to just shoot him, right? Have someone pull up to the car, pull alongside the car and shoot him. Now this is really risky. I mean, the Israelis have a saying, no rescue, no operation. So the plan needs to be foolproof. They need their agents or assets to escape. They do not want to sacrifice agents or assets. So they, they rule out the run and gun shootout idea. Now another one is a roadside bomb or a car bomb. Now that is imprecise, difficult to place correctly. You would also maybe not be certain that you would kill him. And the Israelis really want to limit collateral damage. And if he's driving with his wife in the car, there is a really good chance that she would die as well. So they come up and this is where it gets a bit wild. Pretty wild. They come up with an extraordinary idea which is a remote controlled satellite linked gun, a robotic gun, which as we were researching this did make me think, I don't know if you've seen this movie, Gordon the Jackal, the late 90s Bruce Willis flick.

[Gordon Carrera]

Nope, nope.

[David McCloskey]

Okay.

[Gordon Carrera]

On my list, sorry.

[David McCloskey]

He uses a robotic machine gun, okay. And Jack Black gets his arm blown off by it in the movie, but it's a robotic machine gun. And this is the idea that the Israelis have. Now the advantages are. I can't believe you haven't seen the Jackal, Gordon. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's as shameful as the fact that I haven't seen War Games.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, exactly. We'll deal with both of those in time.

[David McCloskey]

I finally got even so. But the advantages of this gunner, I think immediately clear which is the support assets that the Israelis will use, can place it and then get away. There's no shooter on site, so you're going to operate this from. In this case, it's going to be thousand miles away. It can be very precise so that you are not going to kill bodyguards or his wife. And what I think is fascinating is that, I mean remote operated weaponry is not, is not particularly new. I mean, it's not a new idea. I mean we had the Jackal reference, but I mean it actually goes back to maybe the Second World War where B29 Superfortresses, they had, you know, turrets with separate gunners located throughout the aircraft. And then they actually consolidated it into one gunner aiming multiple guns from kind of a Plexiglas dome kind of sighting station and is actually using an early version of a GE computer to direct the guns where they should be pointing. There's actually another example of this which is something called the common Remote Operated weapon station or crows. Now I know you're a pigeon guy, Gordon, but this is a CROWS system.

[Gordon Carrera]

Another bird reference. Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And basically it's a remote operated gun set atop a U.S. humvee. Right. So instead of a gunner actually having their half of their body, their head out, they could be down from the safety of the cab firing the gun.

[Gordon Carrera]

But I guess what's with both of those examples, what you're still talking about? It is remote controlled on one level, but only maybe by a few feet. You know, the person is still in the B29 Superfortress or they're in the Humvee. Yeah, they're operating it, but it's basically just, just above them or close to them. So in a sense it's remote controlled, but not in a way this operation is going to be. I mean, I mean that's what's remarkable about this is the distance, if you like, between the person operating it, the controller and the target. We're talking about, you know, what is that, a thousand miles, Something, something extraordinary between, you know, Israel and this remote part of Iran.

[David McCloskey]

In many respects it's like a land based drone. You know, I mean, the Israelis in this case couldn't obviously fly a drone from Israel to Iran without it being shot down or noticed or whatever. But in this case you can have all of the advantages of that distance with all of the accuracy of a gun as opposed to using something from the air. Now what they choose seems to be a, an FN Mag machine gun, probably Belgian made, with armor penetrating capabilities. It's attached, according to unnamed Israeli officials, to a robotic apparatus that is very similar to a piece of equipment actually made by a Spanish arms manufacturer called the Sentinel 20. It's essentially a robotic turret that allows the operator to move the gun around and to compress the trigger. Now it's rigged up with cameras everywhere, so you can see probably three hundred and sixty degrees around this thing, up all that. Now one of the problems is that when the Israelis put all this together and of course they test it extensively inside Israel before they ever deploy it. It weighs almost 2,000 pounds.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, it's a big bit of kit.

[David McCloskey]

Right now, no one really knows, but in the Ronan Bergman account of the killing, he claims that Mossad used maybe about 20 officers and support assets to sort of assemble and position everything in Iran. Right. Which means you're probably smuggling this thing in piece by piece in like produce trucks that are going across the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. It probably takes a long time to get all of this kit into Iran.

[Gordon Carrera]

I actually saw just a reference that a few months ago, so years after the operation, the Iranians had charged, prosecuted, you know, convicted, I think three people of treason for a role in this. I mean, they were just described as Kurdish smugglers and alcohol smugglers, you know, and that have been their cover and that they may have been used to bring in some of those parts. Witting or unwitting, we don't know. And obviously that may only be one part of the operation. But you can imagine a very complex long term operation using smugglers, perhaps using existing criminal smuggling networks to bring those parts in and then someone who can assemble it in this place, ready to do it and camouflage it, I guess, make sure it doesn't look, you know, suspicious, have the cameras there, wire it up so it's ready to go. I mean, that's. It's a pretty serious bit of effort. But I guess that's the advantage of having chosen this remote location in the middle of the countryside on this route.

[David McCloskey]

And everything you just laid out there, Gordon, it's very labor intensive, I think, to do this right. And they decide to rig it up, rig the gun up on the back of a Zamyad pickup truck, which is a type of truck very common in, in Iran, and to camouflage it so it looks like a workman's truck. Right. So it kind of has tools, construction equipment in the back, all situated to hide this gun. Now, the Israelis have another problem, which is they need to verify in real time that it's Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in the car.

[Gordon Carrera]

At the wheel.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, at the wheel.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's the one driving, right?

[David McCloskey]

Because could be his wife driving, it, could be a body. I mean, they need to, they need to be certain that it's him. And so they come up with another idea, which is to basically set up a car along the route that will precede the Zamiad pickup truck that's got the gun and that will be rigged up with cameras to allow the Israelis with enough time to confirm or to call the whole thing off. That it's actually Fakhrizadei at the wheel. So they position a car on the route which is going to look broken down, it's got a wheel missing, you know, it's sort of on a jack, as if a tire is being changed and maybe someone's left it there. But in it is a series of cameras which will grab an image of who's driving the cars in the convoy. And it's just far enough from the side of the gun to give the Israelis time to confirm the identity of the driver and adapt what they're doing. So, yeah, that's how they'll do the check. Now there's another problem which we haven't discussed and I think this is how we end up with the maybe somewhat exaggerated claim that the gun that killed Mohsin Bag Quiz a day was AI enabled. And it's the idea that that distance from Israel, where presumably the operators of this robotic gun will be sitting, and Iran, there's a lag, there's a comms lag from that message going from the operator in Israel to Iran and back and forth. So you have a time lag issue. You also have an issue of most of the remote operated weapon systems. We were just talking about The Crows, the B29. The guns are really, they're on a very stable surface. Right. Or they're sort of stabilized. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Gordon Carrera]

So because it's going to move when.

[David McCloskey]

You put it's going to move, there's going to be, there's going to be recoil. Right. Every time you fire the pickup, the Zambiad is going to sort of rock and tilt the car. So you've got, you've got the movement of the vehicle that the gun is in and you've got that, that comms delay. Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

Which is about one and a half seconds.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, that's right. The Israelis calculated it's 0.8 seconds each way. So round trip, it's a 1.6 second delay. And by the way, you're going to be aiming at a car that might be moving.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

That has for Crazy Day in it. So it's a little bit like I guess the lag Gordon in like a video game.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And the Israelis develop a piece of software to overcome this to compensate. And that is where we get these claims that it's AI enabled. Right. But it's really, it's an algorithm that the Israelis have built, purpose built to account for the rock of the car, the movement of Mohsin Fakhrizadeh's car and the comms lag between Israel and Iran.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I think it's worth stressing that because I think when people hear about AI robot guns, they immediately think of something which is, if you like, an autonomous weapon where some computer algorithm is deciding itself when to fire and when to shoot and what to shoot at. And that's the kind of. Yeah, that's the sci fi vision of, if you like, about AI and warfare and drones and which we're, which to some extent we're heading to. And you're starting to see some of that autonomous weapon systems being used in places including in Ukraine and Russia. But this is slightly different. It's AI assisting a remote controlled weapon rather than, if you like, an autonomous weapon which fires by itself. So it's very, it's not quite the killer robots idea. And so there with the gun in place, controlled, remotely hidden in the pickup truck. Let's take a break and when we come back, it's going to be the 27th of November 2020, an otherwise pleasant afternoon on Imam Khomeini Boulevard. That is the street name outside this lovely country town of Absad. And we'll see what happens with this operation to target Mohsin Fakhrizade.

[David McCloskey]

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[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

Only by accident. Never deliberately, and then regretted it immediately.

[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

That's right, David. So to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to incogni.com restisclassified or click the link in the episode description box.

[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

Welcome back. It's dawn on Friday 27th November 2020. There's a blue gun laden Zamoyad pickup parked on the side of this road in the countryside. A car with a flat tire is parked at a roundabout just before it and Mohsen Fakhrizade is at the wheel of his car, a black Nissan. He's driving and his wife is in the passenger seat.

[David McCloskey]

They're on the road late that morning. It's a convoy we should point out, because as we mentioned, Gordon Fakhrizadeh of course has a security detail with him at all times. The first car carries the security guys. The second car is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and his wife in the family Nissan. And then there's two cars that have security men behind them. So it's a four car convoy. And what I think is quite wild is that later the Iranians will say they actually got wind that there might be a threat against Fakhrizadeh, but they didn't know when or where it would happen. Fakhrizadeh had nonetheless been warned against travel. One does wonder if in the years since his friends and colleagues were targeted by the Israelis, if he's getting a constant stream of threats all the time, many of which are quite vague. And he's just, he's totally desensitized to them at this point.

[Gordon Carrera]

But I also love the detail. He's teaching a class in Tehran the next day. It goes back to his dual life as kind of, you know, secret commander of this nuclear weapons program and then under another identity, an academic. And he's due to be teaching and he doesn't want to do it remotely.

[David McCloskey]

Right.

[Gordon Carrera]

He doesn't want to do it by zoom, which I've got to give him.

[David McCloskey]

Some respect for from a pedagogical standpoint.

[Gordon Carrera]

He wants to see his students in person.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, that's right.

[Gordon Carrera]

You could imagine this guy going, no, I don't. You know, I've had this warning, but I'm tired of these warnings. I've got to get to my class and also I'm going to drive my car, you know, brushing it all off. But I guess that's, I guess that's him. And maybe he's just stubborn.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, I think there's some stubbornness here.

[Gordon Carrera]

Maybe complacent, I don't know, maybe a bit of, bit of that.

[David McCloskey]

He's also like a, I think he's probably a very stubborn kind of hard headed old guy who wants to drive his own car, who's probably getting 15 of these threat reports every year and nothing has come to pass in, you know, recent memory for him also, I mean, I think we shouldn't brush past the fact that dread of a zoom call probably contributes to his death in some way because he did not want to teach the class remotely. Right. And he presumably could have, but I can also understand that as he doesn't want to do it. Yeah, you know, he's got his own play and he wants to run it. So by 3:30 local time, the motorcade has arrived outside Absard. And here I think it is a little fascinating to speculate on what's actually going on in that car. Cause he's just in there with his wife. I mean, is he listening to music, a podcast, a book on tape? Are they arguing? Are they In a silent, you know, sort of just silent car ride, enjoying the scenery. We have absolutely no idea, but it's a very human moment. I mean, we've all been on road trips with, you know, friends, family, significant others.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's this idea he likes to drive himself, I find quite interesting. You can imagine, without the bodyguards in the car, time with his wife. This is almost the closest he gets to relaxing. You know, he's in the countryside and they're coming south down the road from the Caspian, crosses over these beautiful mountain ranges. I think it's amazing scenery.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. And you can actually see some of these drives on, on YouTube. And it's very lovely countryside, mountains, rolling hills, orchards. Quite lovely. So he's probably just taking in some of the scenery, enjoying the drive, enjoying being out of the grind of Tehran traffic kind of on the, on the open road. And they come to this U turn where essentially Fakriza Day, in order to turn right onto Imam Khomeini Boulevard, which is this fateful road, they've got to go up kind of past Imam Khomeini Boulevard and hit a roundabout and kind of turn back around so they can actually make that right hand turn. And that is where that roundabout is, is where the Israelis have placed the car.

[Gordon Carrera]

The lookout.

[David McCloskey]

The lookout car, exactly. To. To confirm that it's Fakhrizadeh. So convoy turns, something interesting happens. The lead car kind of jets off for the main house, which makes sense because they want to go and check things out at their destination. Right. It would be logical that a foreign intelligence service like the Israelis would know where he was going and could have sprung a trap on him at the house. And so the lead car zooms out to go and look. Now, what is terrible about this from a security standpoint for Mohsin Fakhrizadeh is that he's now fully exposed because he's driving the lead car.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Of the convoy by himself with his wife. Right. So there's no security in there. And Mossad might even be a little bit shocked by that because that makes their job a lot easier. Now, Mossad has placed that blue Zamyat with the robotic gun in it about 500 meters south of the junction. So he's going to turn off on Imam Khomeini Boulevard. The Zam yet is parked about 500 meters south of that. Now, this shows, I think, the amazingly granular detail of the intelligence that the Israelis have, because you can actually see them on the satellite imagery. There are speed bumps on Imam Khomeini Boulevard. And so the whole convoy has to slow down for the speed bump right before it reaches the pickup. And so they placed this pickup. Mossad has placed this pickup very intentionally to make the shooter's job easier. So he's not going to hit a car going 30, 40 miles an hour. He's going to hit a car that's almost stopped, or is it sort of a, you know, a rolling stop? And we're told it's going to, you know, comes up to that speed bump, it slows down. And we're told in the Ronan Bergman Farnaz Fasihi account in the New York Times that, quote, a stray dog began crossing the road, which I assume wasn't.

[Gordon Carrera]

A Mossad dog, which I assume was.

[David McCloskey]

Not a Mossad dog.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And I think is indicative of the sourcing that these journalists had for this piece, because that's probably coming from somebody who actually watched the video in real time or later. Now, the machine gun fires. So it hits the front of the car, kind of. Right. Maybe on the top part of the hood before the windshield. The account isn't clear here, but I think it suggests that in this initial volley perhaps was not hit. Now, the car swerves, comes to a stop. The shooter in Israel, and by the way, we've got no idea who this person is, but he makes an adjustment and they fire again, hit the windshield maybe three times. And here they hit Fachrizade once in the shoulder. And how do they know it's the shoulder? Well, you might hold it a bit. Maybe they had to look at the tape afterward. But in any case, Pakriz slumps out of the car and crouches behind the door. Now, he's probably confused as to what's going on here.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Where the police are coming from, where. Where the bullets are, where's the shooter? Right. The Iranians will claim that three more bullets hit him. He falls dead on the road. Now, Mrs. Fakhrizadeh is in the car. She's unhurt, at least bodily, even though she's about 10 inches away. And not a single one of the assassins is in the country.

[Gordon Carrera]

What's remarkable is the ability to move that gun because he comes out of the car, it looks like, and it's, you know, they are able to move the gun, point it to him and shoot him and kill him and not hurt his wife. I mean, it's remarkable how accurate that is given that it's all done remotely. So at this point, the operation looks remarkably successful. From an Israeli point of view. One bit does go wrong, though, doesn't it? Because. Because they'd wired up the robot gun to blow up and to destroy the evidence. But it looks like that didn't quite work. After it's done its job, obviously the.

[David McCloskey]

Israelis would prefer that the Iranians have very little to really peek through or exploit afterward. And they have rigged up the Zamyad and the gun with explosives. But whether it was the quantity of explosives or their positioning or something else, what they do is, instead of destroying the gun explosives, launch it skyward, but intact, mostly. And the Iranians are later able to piece together what's happened, and they come to the conclusion that 15 bullets were fired out of this gun, and the whole thing took less than a minute.

[Gordon Carrera]

I mean, it's amazing.

[David McCloskey]

Extraordinary.

[Gordon Carrera]

So I remember this as a journalist being called by the news desk on the day it happened. And it was fascinating because it was. It was clear that he'd been killed and that something dramatic had happened. But there were really conflicting reports about what it was. There was lots of talk about a shootout. And I think the assumption from a lot of people was that a team of gunmen had. Had ambushed the vehicle, had shot him, and then escaped. And that was definitely the view, that there was a group of, you know, 12 shooters and 50 support personnel. That had been a gun battle. He'd been dragged from the car. You know, these were some of the stories that came out at that point. And then soon after, you started to hear this talk about a robotic machine gun being used in the aftermath, I think it took a few weeks. And I remember people actually dismissed it at first.

[David McCloskey]

Oh, just laughed at it.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, they laughed at it because people said, well, that's absurd. That's science fiction. And also they were saying, well, this is the Iranians trying to justify by what was clearly a huge security lapse in allowing their top nuclear scientists to be killed. So they were coming up in response with some wild idea about robotic machine guns to cover up the fact that a group of gunmen had got in and managed to kill him and then escape. But actually, it appears that was the truth of what happened. And it was a remarkable fact which took some time to emerge and which I think people just didn't believe at first because it just seemed too much.

[David McCloskey]

Well, and Fakhrizadeh is given a full martyr's funeral. The coffin is draped in the Iranian flag. It's carried by an honor guard on a pilgrimage of sorts to shrines in Qom and Tehran. It ends in a big state funeral. Now, this is Covid times. And so everyone is wearing masks in the videos of the funeral. You can tell by the chair placement. It's a socially distanced funeral. The chairs are six feet apart. And the Iranians, despite this incredible security failure, you know, they sort of lionize Fakhrizadeh. They print his mug and put it on posters and they say, we will chase the criminals to the end. And Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is buried and put to rest. So I think, Gordon, there's so many different ways we could talk about what all of this means. I think one of them which is very striking to me is that there can be a tendency to talk about AI, facial recognition, autonomous weaponry as the future, but in reality, it's kind of the past. I mean, this was. We're talking about a killing that happened five years ago.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And it makes you think that science fiction like this is really. I mean, it's here.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, we're starting to see it. As we said, this was kind of AI enabled remote weaponry.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah. And not autonomous.

[Gordon Carrera]

Not autonomous.

[David McCloskey]

I'm autonomous out there. But you're. It's not at all.

[Gordon Carrera]

But I think what's interesting is if you just took that on one step and you said, well, what if the cameras, the two sets of cameras in the observation car and in the shooting pickup had had facial recognition software which were designed to automatically work out and do facial recognition on who was sat at which point in which car and then shoot the gun based on spotting it. That is technically feasible. So in that sense, you could see the technology to make a weapon system like that actually fully autonomous, just using facial recognition rather than having a human remotely authorize it and physically pull the trigger. So technically it's possible to move that on to remote controlled and autonomous. And you are starting to see that being used. I mean, there's a lot of interesting kind of work around this autonomy of weapons, particularly with drones. And that's the main way we think about it. And you see it with, with some of those drones which are being used in the, the Russia, Ukraine conflict to target people and where there's elements of AI now we haven't quite got to that fully autonomous killer robots world yet, but I don't think it's that far away. And I think this shows us the way it might be used for very targeted operations against individuals. I think in many ways it's quite a terrifying future. You know, if someone can launch a drone or have a killer robot hidden somewhere and just wait for someone to pass who a facial recognition Software says, yep, that's the target or the type of target.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

And based on a certain signature or facial recognition, you know, launch the drone, drop the bomb, fire the machine gun. I mean, this is the future, if not of warfare, of covert operations, I think, by intelligence agencies.

[David McCloskey]

It's interesting. It did make me think of the mass production of kind of first person view FPV drones that we're seeing now in the Russia, Ukraine conflict, how cheap they are and how effective they are at killing from just an efficiency standpoint, well beyond what you would see from kind of dumb munitions or artillery. And we are not far from. In fact, we're probably already in a world where you can merge really cheap drone technology with really cheap facial recognition technology and have something that could be used in a really terrifying way in our societies in the west too, that are not in war zones. I mean, the issue with the Fakhrizidi killing and what made it so labor intensive was the legwork required to smuggle all of this stuff into Iran, put it together there.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And. And probably to develop the intelligence picture in the first place. Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

To get a hard. A well protected target.

[David McCloskey]

Right, exactly, exactly. And I think that kind of work across massive kind of distance will continue to be really labor intensive. Right. Especially if you're trying to limit collateral damage. But if you're not concerned with limiting collateral damage and you're going after targets that are not all that far away, the implications of it get really spooky really quickly.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And some people do worry that the remoteness of being able to kill people also makes it easier to pull the trigger, if you like. I mean, I remember going to visit Creech Air Force Base in Nevada in the US where at that point the RAF was flying Reaper drones. So this was the Brits operating Reaper drones over Afghanistan. And where they were starting, just as I was there, to start to use them to, to drop bombs as well as to kind of carry out events. I remember asking one of the operators, doesn't it feel like a video game? And they got very offended with me. And I can understand why, because in their view, they are in combat, they are involved in potentially killing people. And yet the distance of the fact that they would then go back to their homes in Las Vegas at the end of the day, where they were saying the disconnect between those two realities of being able to kill people at a distance, remotely, in that way, or at the next stage, perhaps even just programming it and not even having to pull the trigger yourself, it does raise quite complicated issues about how. How warfare is changing and whether that makes it, if you like, too easy to kill people at a distance because you're not seeing them eye to eye, but equally you're not putting your own people at risk.

[David McCloskey]

Right.

[Gordon Carrera]

Which is why people want to do it. It's why the Israelis did it in this case, and why people use drones rather than man planes in some cases, to drop munitions in other situations. So it is an interesting one ethically. I think also the ethics and the efficacy of targeting these scientists and these nuclear scientists is another interesting one. Is it right. And B, does it work? Those are the questions about.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, let's take the efficacy point first. I mean, did the assassination slow the nuclear program or did that, did this whole set of targeted killings going back almost 20 years now, has it, has it had a material impact on Iran's race toward a bomb? I mean, that is, I think, probably an impossible question to answer because we can't know. It's, you know, the counterfactual is, well, if you hadn't killed any of these people, would the Iranians, would they be three years ahead? Would they be five years ahead? It's almost impossible to say. I think we can say, though, that the Iranians at this point have never been closer to a breakout capability. Right. So it's possible that these killings have slowed the program. They certainly have not stopped it. And I think you have to say, though, that you have to say it's almost. It's just. It's an impossible counterfactual to answer, really. I mean, but it's. I think it's possible they've slowed the program down.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Ronan Bergman's book on targeted killings. I mean, he basically makes the point after hundreds and hundreds of pages of going through these operations that the Israelis have had a really hard time connecting these targeted killings to broader kind of political or strategic outcomes. Right. And I think you have to say in this case that the whole suite of pressure measures that the Israelis have taken has not stopped the Iranians from pursuing a bomb. And why would it? Right. It has not changed the strategic calculation for the Iranians to go after a weapon.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think it hasn't changed their desire to do it. Certainly some individuals can play an important role, but often, almost always, they are replaceable or have passed on their knowledge or information. And so taking them out of the picture does not stop the program. I think it's very rare where you have one individual who, by removing them, would stop it. I mean, if you Think, you know, if you go back to the Oppenheimer comparison, I mean, if somehow, I don't know, the Japanese or the Germans in World War II had got to Oppenheimer, I don't think it would have stopped the Manhattan Project. There were too many people, too many things already set in train. Too much of the knowledge had been dispersed. So I'm not sure that it makes a strategic difference. You can buy a bit of time. And I think that is the only point where I think it is interesting to think, well, ultimately, this is not about changing the strategic calculus. All it is doing is buying perhaps some time. And in that time, the question is, what else can you do? Can you come up with diplomatic solutions? Can you find out some other ways of changing the calculus about Iran? Or if it is simply about avoiding a military strike? And I do take that point from inside Mossad and back to Mayor Dagan thinking, actually, I'm doing what looks like a very aggressive action, but I'm actually doing it to stop a war, because otherwise my Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may do something actually quite crazy which may have very detrimental consequences. These are the quite complex equations I think people are making in this situation.

[David McCloskey]

You're right. I mean, there's a whole bunch of complex strategic and operational and ethical questions to this. There's also, at the root of it, something exceedingly simple. So Bergman's book is titled Rise and Kill first, and it got that title because as he was interviewing people in Mossad who were involved in these operations, he kept getting quotes from, of all places, the Babylonian Talmud, when they were having conversations about sort of the justification for these operations. And the piece of scripture was, whoever comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first. So there is a very simple, I think, perspective here inside the Mossad as well, which is the Iranians are trying to build the capability to destroy us. We are justified as a result of that in going and killing people who are involved in, you know, threatening us. It's kind of not more complicated than that in some respects.

[Gordon Carrera]

But I suppose my question is, does it actually serve your country's interest and your national interest in the long run compared to a policy which might try and put a different strategic or diplomatic lid on the Iranian nuclear program? If this becomes a substitute for a policy which might actually be able to restrain Iran, then I. I kind of question it.

[David McCloskey]

I think the assumption is that it's not realistic, that there's not a path toward, you know, a sort of better way of interacting with. With the Islamic Republic. Right. I mean, I think that's, that's the assumption, right? You'd have to say, look, the assumption.

[Gordon Carrera]

From, from the hawkish quarters. But I guess, you know, there was a lid on the Iranian nuclear program for a few years, years with a deal. So I don't think it's impossible. I don't think the Iranians are crazy enough not to look at the possibilities of deals and are not to be subject to other incentives. I think it's an interesting question. I guess in some ways we may find out some of the answers this year as to how Iran and Israel play out that calculation about whether to go for the bomb or whether to attack Iran if you're Israel. Because I think all the signs are in the next few months this issue may come to a head and it may come to a head in terms of military action or in terms of a deal, but who knows which, David? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[David McCloskey]

So maybe there, Gordon, with really thorny issues of ethics and efficacy, maybe totally unresolved, let's end it and end our exploration into the life and times and death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and our journey into the shadow war between Israel and Iran.

[Gordon Carrera]

So see you on Monday.