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".

Humiliated by the killing of a top nuclear scientist, Iranian officials sought this week to rewrite the attack as an episode of science fiction: Israel had executed him entirely by remote control, spraying bullets from an automated machine gun propped up in a parked Nissan without a single assassin on the scene. Even hard-liners mocked the new spin. "Why don't you just say Tesla built the Nissan? It drove by itself, parked by itself, fired the shots and blew up by itself?" one hard-line social media account said. "Are you, like us, doubting this narrative?" Since the killing of the scientist on Friday, contradictory reports in the official news media about the escape or even existence of a hit team -- along with assertions of prior warnings from the Interior Ministry about the attack -- revealed tensions between competing Iranian intelligence agencies as each sought to dodge blame for an egregious security lapse.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's supreme leader on Saturday demanded the "definitive punishment" of those behind the killing of a scientist who led Tehran's disbanded military nuclear program, as the Islamic Republic blamed Israel for a slaying that has raised fears of reignited tensions across the Middle East. After years of being in the shadows, the image of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh suddenly was to be seen everywhere in Iranian media, as his widow spoke on state television and officials publicly demanded revenge on Israel for the scientist's slaying. Israel, long suspected of killing Iranian scientists a decade ago amid earlier tensions over Tehran's nuclear program, has yet to comment on Fakhrizadeh's killing Friday. However, the attack bore the hallmarks of a carefully planned, military-style ambush, the likes of which Israel has been accused of conducting before. The attack has renewed fears of Iran striking back against the U.S., Israel's closest ally in the region, as it did earlier this year when a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general.

The E.U. supports the Iranian nuclear deal as the Trump administration announces new sanctions. Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Saturday threatened to avenge the killing of its top general, saying it would go after everyone responsible for the January U.S. drone strike in Iraq. The guard's website quoted Gen. Hossein Salami as saying, "Mr. Our revenge for martyrdom of our great general is obvious, serious and real." FILE: Chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hossein Salami speaks at a pro-government rally, in Tehran, Iran.

Iran on Saturday said it had detained an Iranian-American leader of a little-known, California-based opposition group for allegedly planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 others. Iran's Intelligence Ministry also asserted that the detained man, Jamshid Sharmahd of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, planned more attacks around the Islamic Republic amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the United States. Mr. Sharmahd's reported arrest comes as relations between the U.S. and Iran remain inflamed in the wake of President Donald Trump's 2018 decision to withdraw America from the 2015 multinational nuclear deal. In January, a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad. Iran responded by launching a ballistic missile attack on U.S. soldiers in Iraq that injured dozens.

On June 30, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's address to the UN Security Council calling for an arms embargo on Iran to be extended was expected to dominate the international news agenda. However, Iran's judiciary stole the morning's headlines by issuing an arrest warrant for Donald Trump the day before. Tehran prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr said on Monday that Trump, along with more than 30 others accused of involvement in the January 3 drone attack that killed Iran's top general, Qassem Soleimani, face "murder and terrorism charges". The prosecutor added that Tehran asked Interpol for help in detaining the US president. The same day, the US special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, denounced the warrant as a "propaganda stunt" at a press conference in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

KYIV – A leaked recording of an exchange between an Iranian air-traffic controller and an Iranian pilot purports to show that authorities immediately knew a missile had downed a Ukrainian jetliner after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard, despite days of denials by the Islamic Republic. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged the recording's authenticity in a report aired by a Ukrainian television channel Sunday night. In Tehran on Monday, the head of the Iranian investigation team, Hassan Rezaeifar, acknowledged the recording was legitimate and said it was handed over to Ukrainian officials. After the Jan. 8 disaster, Iran's civilian government maintained for days that it didn't know the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had shot down the aircraft. The downing of the jetliner came just hours after the Guard launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces in retaliation for an earlier American drone strike that killed the Guard's top general, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad.

WASHINGTON – The House Ethics Committee is warning lawmakers not to share doctored images or videos that could "erode public trust, effect public discourse, or sway an election," guidance that comes during a proliferation of online misinformation in the run-up to the 2020 elections. In a memo sent to House members Tuesday, the committee said lawmakers or staffers could be found in violation of House ethics rules and subject to disciplinary proceedings for posting content intended to mislead the public. "Members have a duty, and a First Amendment right, to contribute to the public discourse," the authors of the memo wrote. "However, manipulation of images and videos that are intended to mislead the public can harm that discourse and reflect discreditably on the House." It's the first time the committee has admonished members of Congress on the use of fake images and audio on social media, though the new guidelines may be difficult to enforce because of a loophole allowing fake images when used for satire or parody.