Iran's top nuclear scientist woke up an hour before dawn, as he did most days. That afternoon, he and his wife would leave their vacation home on the Caspian Sea and drive to their country house in Absard, east of Tehran. Convinced that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was leading Iran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb, Israel had wanted to kill him for at least 14 years. Iran's intelligence had warned Fakhrizadeh of a possible assassination plot, but the scientist had brushed it off. So shortly after noon on November 27, he slipped behind the wheel of his black Nissan Teana sedan along with his wife and hit the road.

That afternoon, he and his wife would leave their vacation home on the Caspian Sea and drive to their country house in Absard, a bucolic town east of Tehran, where they planned to spend the weekend. Iran's intelligence service had warned him of a possible assassination plot, but the scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, had brushed it off. Convinced that Mr. Fakhrizadeh was leading Iran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb, Israel had wanted to kill him for at least 14 years. But there had been so many threats and plots that he no longer paid them much attention. Despite his prominent position in Iran's military establishment, Mr. Fakhrizadeh wanted to live a normal life. And, disregarding the advice of his security team, he often drove his own car to Absard instead of having bodyguards drive him in an armored vehicle. It was a serious breach of security protocol, but he insisted. So 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 2004, when the Israeli government ordered its foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the agency had been carrying out a campaign of sabotage and cyberattacks on Iran's nuclear fuel enrichment facilities.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Israel shared three cell phone numbers used by Qasem Soleimani with U.S. intelligence in the hours before American drones unleashed Hellfire missiles on the Iranian general last year, Yahoo News reported Saturday. The revelation sheds new light on the role that Israel played in the killing of Soleimani, who the State Department says was responsible for hundreds of U.S. troop deaths as the head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force. The drone strike occurred shortly after midnight on Jan. 2, 2020, as Soleimani and his entourage were leaving Baghdad's international airport.

Iran's foreign minister apologized Sunday for recorded comments that were leaked to the public last week that offered a blunt appraisal of the country's power struggles, sparking a political firestorm in Iran less than two months before presidential elections and apparently drawing the ire of Iran's supreme leader. The recordings of Mohammad Javad Zarif included frank comments about the powerful late Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq last year, as well as criticism of his polices in Syria and his relations with Russia. "I hope that the great people of Iran and all the lovers of General (Soleimani) and especially the great family of Soleimani, will forgive me," Zarif said in an Instagram post. In a speech broadcast later Sunday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared to lambast Zarif for departing from the official line, although he didn't call him out by name. "It's a big mistake that must not be made by an official of the Islamic Republic," Khamenei said in veiled reference to the leaked comments.

The aircraft carrier Nimitz is finally going home. The Pentagon last month ordered the warship to remain in the Middle East because of Iranian threats against President Donald J. Trump and other American officials, just three days after announcing the ship was returning home as a signal to de-escalate rising tensions with Tehran. With those immediate tensions seeming to ease a bit, and President Biden looking to renew discussions with Iran on the 2015 nuclear accord that Mr. Trump withdrew from, three Defense Department officials said on Monday that the Nimitz and its 5,000-member crew were ordered on Sunday to return to the ship's home port of Bremerton, Wash., after a longer-than-usual 10-month deployment. The Pentagon for weeks had been engaged in a muscle-flexing strategy aimed at deterring Iran and its Shia proxies in Iraq from attacking American personnel in the Persian Gulf to avenge the death of Maj. General Suleimani, the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was killed in an American drone strike in January 2020.

The president says he will hold Iran responsible if any Americans are killed as the USS Georgia passes through the Strait of Hormuz; Lucas Tomlinson reports. TEHRAN, Iran – The top commander of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said Friday that his country was fully prepared to respond to any U.S. military pressure as tensions between Tehran and Washington remain high in the waning days of President Donald Trump's administration. Gen. Hossein Salami spoke at a ceremony at Tehran University commemorating the upcoming one-year anniversary of the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who headed the expeditionary Quds force, on Jan. 3, 2020. At the time, Iran retaliated by launching a ballistic missile strike on a military base in Iraq that caused brain concussion injuries to about 100 U.S. troops. Washington and Tehran came dangerously close to war as the crisis escalated.

Two American B-52 bombers flew another show-of-force mission in the Persian Gulf on Wednesday, a week after President Trump warned Iran that he would hold it accountable "if one American is killed" in rocket attacks in Iraq that the administration and military officials blamed on Tehran. The warplanes' 36-hour round-trip mission from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota was the third time in six weeks that Air Force bombers had conducted long-range flights about 60 miles off the Iranian coast, moves that military officials said were intended to deter Iran from attacking American troops in the region. The United States periodically conducts such quick demonstration missions to the Middle East and Asia to showcase American air power to allies and adversaries. But tensions have been rising in advance of the Jan. 3 anniversary of the American drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the Iraqi leader of an Iranian-backed militia -- deaths that Iranian leaders repeatedly insist they have not yet avenged.

Iran's supreme leader and the country's president both warned America on Wednesday that the departure of President Donald Trump does not immediately mean better relations between the two nations. The remarks come as Iran approaches the first anniversary of the U.S. drone strike that killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, an attack that nearly plunged Washington and Tehran into an open war after months of tensions. In recent weeks, a scientist who founded Iran's military nuclear program two decades ago was gunned down in an attack in a rural area outside of Tehran that The Associated Press accessed for the first time Wednesday. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke in Tehran at the Imam Khomeini Hosseinieh, or congregation hall, where he attended a meeting with Soleimani's family and top military leaders. They all sat some 16 feet away from the 81-year-old Khamenei, who wore a face mask due to the coronavirus pandemic still raging in Iran.

A satellite-controlled machine gun with "artificial intelligence" was used in last week's assassination of a top nuclear scientist in Iran, the deputy commander of the country's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told local media Sunday. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, long regarded by Israel and the US as the head of Iran's rogue nuclear weapons program, was driving on a highway outside Iran's capital Tehran with a security detail of 11 Guards on November 27, when the machine gun "zoomed in" on his face and fired 13 rounds, said Rear-admiral Ali Fadavi. The machine gun was mounted on a Nissan pickup and "focused only on martyr Fakhrizadeh's face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25 centimeters (10 inches) away, was not shot," the Mehr news agency quoted IRGC chief Fadavi as saying. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up It was being "controlled online" via a satellite and used an "advanced camera and artificial intelligence" to make the target, he added. Fadavi said that Fakhrizadeh's head of security took four bullets "as he threw himself" on the scientist, and that there were "no terrorists at the scene."

New Delhi: Iran on Sunday said that a satellite-controlled machine gun with "artificial intelligence" was used to kill its top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh near the capital Tehran on November 27. The scientist was driving on a highway with a security detail of 11 Guards, when the machine gun "zoomed in" on his face and fired 13 rounds. Addressing a commemoration ceremony on Sunday for the scientist, Iran's deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Ali Fadavi told local media that the machine gun was mounted on a Nissan pickup and "focused only on martyr Fakhrizadeh's face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25 centimetres (10 inches) away, was not shot." He added, "It was being controlled online via a satellite and used an advanced camera and artificial intelligence to make the target. Fadavi also said that Fakhrizadeh's head of security took four bullets "as he threw himself" on the scientist and that there were "no terrorists at the scene".