Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) colonel gunned down in his car just outside his home in Tehran, was not a high-profile figure. Until his assassination by two gunmen on a motorbike on May 22, no one seemed to know of him.

Even following his killing, Iranian groups on the popular smartphone app Telegram where news of military figures and the Iran-led 'Axis of Resistance' are usually spread with speed, no one could tell his nom de guerre. In Lebanon, security sources told Amwaj.media without divulging any details, he was known by another name.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one Iranian source close to the extraterritorial branch of the IRGC—the Quds Force—asserted that 49-year-old Khodaei’s name was not even on the list of individuals on a constantly updated possible hit list. In practice, this meant that he did not enjoy the protection afforded by the IRGC’s special protection unit, Ansar Al-Mahdi...