More Iranian military leadership have been killed.

 

An Iranian man holds up a picture of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the Iranian scientist killed last week. VOA/Reuters.

Two more Iranian military leaders have been killed in the wake of the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. VOA. Muslim Shahdan, a high ranking commander of the Revolutionary Guard, was killed in a drone strike near the Iraqi-Syrian border, along with several other people. Another high ranking intelligence official, Habib Sawari, was killed in an attack on his home in Iran. It is unclear how Iran will respond to these attacks though Iran's former President, Abolhassan Bani Sadr, said that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would not likely be drawn into a war. 

My Comment:

Looks like it is open season on high ranking Iranians. Not counting Qasem Soleimani, this is the third major assassination/killing in recent memory. These two men were not as important as Soleimani or Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the nuclear scientist killed recently, but it's still rather shocking to see these men get killed. 

It makes sense that Shahdan and Sawari were killed. They were key cogs in the Iranian war machine and killing them makes any war with Israel or Saudi Arabia harder for the Iranians to win. They were people that the Iranians need and they will be hard to replace. 

The killings have to humiliating for Iran. Two of these killings happened inside of their borders and it makes them look incredibly week since they not only were unable to prevent these attacks but also have no real way to respond. Same with the drone strikes that killed Shahdan and Soleimani, Iran can't pull off anything like this. Indeed, the Iranians seem like they are unlikely to do much of anything in response to these attacks. 

I think that Iran screwed themselves over by not responding more forcefully then they did when Soleimani died. They missile strikes they launched were a joke and didn't kill anyone, making them look pretty pathetic. Now Iran's enemies sense the weakness and are pressing them. 

Who is responsible for these attacks? I am guessing it will be Israel. They have the technology and expertise that is necessary for these kinds of strikes. The only other candidate that I can think of is Saudi Arabia but they seem to have their hands full with the Yemen situation, which is itself a proxy conflict between them and Iran. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Israel is getting help from Saudi Arabia and possibly the United States.