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 that Mr Raisi accused “imperialist powers” of being behind the assassination, which was carried out on Sunday in a neighbourhood southeast of the Iranian capital. 

The “imperialist powers” is a term used in Iran to reference 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.

The report said his attackers fired five shots before fleeing on a motorcycle. He was shot in his small car and was without bodyguards, according to reports.

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

Mr 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.

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)