The branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Markazi province announced in a statement broadcast by Iranian media late Sunday that Ali Kamani, a member of the IRGC aerospace division working in Khomeini, was about 320 kilometers (200 miles) ) south of the capital Tehran, was killed in a “driving accident” while on an unspecified mission. Earlier Monday, the IRGC-affiliated semi-official Fars news website reported that another aerospace worker, 33-year-old Mohammad Abdous, had also died while on a mission. Iran’s defense ministry later said Abdous was working for the ministry. Marking both deaths as “martyrdom” probably suggests that Iran believes the men were killed. No details have been released on Abdous’s death, other than that he died Sunday in the northern province of Semnan.

Suspected deaths

Kamani and Abdus are the latest in a series of mysterious deaths in recent weeks. One of them, an IRGC Quds Force colonel, Ali Esmaeilzadeh, was reported by state media to have died in an accident earlier this month. The semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the IRGC, has denied allegations by a London-based Iranian opposition television channel that Esmaeilzadeh was killed by the IRGC on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of another 22 colonels. Tasnim described the allegation as “psychological warfare and fabrication of news” and said it fell from the uncovered balcony of his house. On May 31, an aerospace engineer named Ayoob Entezari died under suspicious circumstances. Israeli media, claiming that Entezari had worked on Iran’s missile and drone programs, reported that he had been poisoned at a dinner party and that the host had left the country. But the court in Yazd, where he died, called 35-year-old Entezari an “ordinary employee of an industrial company” who died of an unspecified “illness” in a hospital and had nothing to do with the IRGC. Prior to the case, on May 26, Iran’s Defense Ministry confirmed that an engineer, Ehsan Ghadbeigi, had been “testified” and that another person had been injured in an “accident” at the Parchin military complex near Tehran. The New York Times then reported that Ghadbeigi had been killed in a suspected Israeli drone strike. The most popular case in recent weeks came on May 22, when Quds Force Colonel Hassan Khodaei was assassinated – shot five times by two motorcyclists as he was returning home to Tehran. He was described as a “defender of the sanctuary” – a term used to describe anyone working for Iran in Syria.

IRGC Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami has publicly blamed Israel for Hodai’s assassination, and many top officials have vowed revenge. Khodaei’s assassination was the highest-profile assassination attempt on Iranian soil since the assassination of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020. Iran has blamed Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, and several sabotage attacks on its nuclear and military facilities, on Israel, which is also believed to be behind many other assassinations of nuclear scientists in Iran over the past decade. The other recent deaths, however, have not been officially confirmed as killings by Iran and have also not been publicly linked to Israel. However, tensions between the two ancient enemies have escalated significantly in recent months, as Israel continues to warn that Iran is building a nuclear bomb and reserves the right to take steps to prevent it. Iran says its nuclear program is strictly peaceful. The Israelis also appear to be stepping up their attacks on Iranian interests in Syria, where Tehran has militarily backed the government of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war. On Friday, Israel was blamed for a rocket attack on Damascus International Airport in Syria that caused “heavy” damage in an attack suspected of targeting Iranian interests in the region. The attacks come as the chances of resuming Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers have dwindled in recent months as negotiations with the United States – which unilaterally abandoned the deal in 2018 – have stalled. Iran has also conducted its own operations against Israel. The most popular Iranian strike on an alleged Israeli target came in mid-March, when the IRGC fired ballistic missiles at a location in Erbil in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which was controlled by Israel Mossad. The IRGC also bombed an area in Erbil last month, which it said was owned by “terrorist groups”. The focus of the Iranian media on some other incidents is also cited by some as a possible indication of Tehran’s involvement. In recent weeks, Iranian media have covered several fires that have broken out in Israel, without blaming any group. They also extensively covered an unmanned aerial vehicle attack in Erbil last week when some reports said a Mossad agent was targeted in a vehicle. Israeli media mocked the drone strike, saying no Mossad officials were at the scene.