DUBAI, Reuters – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reported on Sunday that one their officers, Colonel Sayad Khodai had been assassinated at Tehran.

Khodai “one of defenders of shrines”, reported the semi-official Tasnim media agency. This is a reference to military personnel and advisers that Iran asserts fights on behalf of Shi’ite locations in Iraq and Syria to defeat groups like Islamic State.

Tasnim reports that two people riding a motorcycle fired on Khodai. The semi-official ISNA news agency also reported that guards had arrested members of an Israeli intelligence network.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office is responsible for overseeing intelligence agency Mossad. It declined to comment.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesperson for Iran Foreign Ministry said that “The sworn enemies of Islam’s holy system of Iran once more showed their evil nature through the assassination of one of its IRGC soldiers.”

At least six Iranian scientists and academics have been killed or attacked since 2010, several of them by assailants riding motorcycles, in incidents believed to have targeted Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, which the West says is aimed at producing a bomb.

Iran says it denies these allegations, claiming its nuclear programme serves peaceful purposes. The Mossad and Western intelligence agencies denounce the murders as terrorist acts and have condemned them. Israel refused to respond.

In April, Iran’s intelligence ministry said it had arrested three Mossad spies in a statement published by the semi-official Fars news agency.

Iran sent troops to Syria in support of President Bashar Al-Assad’s ally.

Afghan and Pakistani volunteers are included in the “defenders for shrines” group.