The sons of the Iranian nuclear scientist who was killed Nov. 27, allegedly by Israel, said their father was warned against traveling on the day of his death, Iran’s state-run media reported.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s sons, who were not named, made the claims during a Friday interview with Iranian state-run media, according to the Times of Israel. They also said that the killing “was really like a war” and that Fakhrizadeh was “hit four, five times by gunfire.”
The sons said that their mother was next to Fakhrizadeh at the time of the shooting and that she was not shot by the assailants, although earlier reports indicated that she might have suffered shrapnel wounds in the attack.
The nuclear scientist was killed when the caravan he was traveling in was ambushed on a rural road about 40 miles east of Tehran. The killing was a blow to Iranian military and intelligence entities, which were not able to stop the attack and have not yet arrested any suspects. Early reports indicated that up to a dozen assassins were involved in the operation.
In what some experts have characterized as an effort to save face, certain officials in Iran have begun claiming that the attack was carried out by a robotic machine gun mounted to a parked car, although that claim flies in the face of the initial reports and eyewitness testimony.
Israel, fearing retaliation for the killing, reportedly warned some former nuclear scientists about possible Iranian revenge attacks, including instructing them to change their set walking paths and be on the alert for suspicious packages.
