Iran Revolutionary Guard Member Shot Dead in Tehran

(AP/Reuters) — An unidentified member of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard was killed outside his home in Tehran on Sunday by gunmen on a motorbike, state media reported, giving only scant details about the attack.

The two assailants shot the victim five times as he entered his home in an alleyway in the eastern part of the capital, state media said.

Reports identified the target only as a “defender of the shrine,” a reference to Iranians who fight against the extremist Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq within the Guard’s elite Quds force that oversees operations abroad.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Security forces were pursuing the suspected assailants, state media reported, without offering further details or giving a motive for the killing.

Meanwhile, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Sunday that members of an Israeli intelligence service network had been discovered and arrested by the IRGC.

“Under the guidance of the Zionist regime’s intelligence service, the network attempted to steal and destroy personal and public property, kidnapping and obtaining fabricated confessions through a network of thugs,” the IRGC public relations service said in a statement.