The entire operation took less than a minute..In all, fifteen bullets were fired, leaving Iran's top nuclear scientist dead..Iran’s intelligence service had warned him of a possible assassination plot but the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, had brushed it off..That afternoon, he and his wife would leave their vacation home on the Caspian Sea and drive to their country house in Absard, a sleepy town east of Tehran, where they planned to spend the weekend..Disregarding the advice of his security team, he often insisted on driving his own car instead of having bodyguards drive him in an armored vehicle — a breach of security that had been noticed..According to a special report in the New York Times, 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..Since 2007, Israeli agents of the Mossad had assassinated five Iranian nuclear scientists and wounded another..Most of the scientists worked directly for Fakhrizadeh (pronounced fah-KREE-zah-deh) on what Israeli intelligence officials said was a covert program to build a nuclear warhead..But the man Israel said led the bomb program was elusive..In 2009, a hit team was waiting for Fakhrizadeh at the site of a planned assassination in Tehran, but the operation was called off at the last moment, the New York Times reported. The plot had been compromised, the Mossad suspected, and Iran had laid an ambush..This time they were going to try something new — a killer robot.. Remote machine gunRemote machine gun .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 Fakhrizadeh, his wife and a team of armed guards in escort cars were about to leave for Absard..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..In fact, 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, the New York Times reported..It would be 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 joined the combat drone in the arsenal of Israeli 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 just about anywhere..Nevertheless, a killer robot profoundly changes the calculus, even for the mighty Mossad, the New York Times reported..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..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, then secretly reassembled in Iran, the New York Times reported..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..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..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..The AI was programmed to compensate for the delay, the shake and the car’s speed — the bullets would not go astray..Another challenge was to determine in real time that it was Fakhrizadeh driving the car and not his wife or a bodyguard, the New York Times reported..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..Shortly before 3:30 p.m., the motorcade arrived at the U-turn on Firuzkouh Road. 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, the New York Times reported..The convoy turned right on Imam Khomeini Boulevard, and the lead car then zipped ahead to the house to inspect it before Fakhrizadeh arrived. Its departure had left the target car fully exposed — a tactical mistake..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 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..Iranian investigators noted that not one of the bullets hit Ms. Ghasemi, seated inches away, accuracy that they attributed to the use of facial recognition software..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..Ghasemi ran out to her husband. “They want to kill me and you must leave,” Fakhrizadeh told her..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, sources said..The news reports from Iran that afternoon were confusing, contradictory and mostly wrong..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..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 CIA director, Gina Haspel, the New York Times reported.. Yossi CohenYossi Cohen .Israel decided to press ahead, driven by two factors: Iran’s tepid response to the January 2020 killing of its top general Qassim Suleimani in a US drone strike, and the rising likelihood that Trump would lose the national election that November to Joe Biden, who had indicated he would return the US to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran..Israeli planners considered detonating a bomb along 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 New York Times reported..In several other Mossad assassinations, hit men on motorcycles sidled up beside the target’s car in Tehran traffic and either shot them through the window or attached a sticky-bomb to the car door, then sped off..But Fakhrizadeh’s armed convoy, on the lookout for such attacks, made the motorcycle method impossible..Thus was born, the killer robot.
