Israel flag, banner thanking Mossad raised in Tehran

Images of an Israeli flag accompanied by a banner thanking Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad in the Iranian capital Tehran went viral on Monday, in an unprecedented move likely linked to the recent assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, which Tehran has blamed on Israel.

A prominent Iranian social media activist going by the pseudonym Vahid Online shared two images and a video showing the Israeli flag on a pedestrian bridge in Tehran.

Vahid Online said the senders claimed the images were taken in Tehran’s Tehranpars area.

The Israeli flag was accompanied by a banner with English writing reading “Thank you Mossad.”

Iranian authorities have not commented on the daring move which is believed to be linked to the recent assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Fakhrizadeh, believed by the West to have been the architect of a secret Iranian military nuclear program, was killed in an ambush near Tehran on November 27.

Iranian officials have accused Israel of being behind Fakhrizadeh’s assassination and vowed retaliation. Israel has declined to comment on the killing.

Fakhrizadeh had long been described by Western, Israeli, and Iranian exile foes of Iran’s clerical rulers as a leader of a covert atomic bomb program halted in 2003. Iran has long denied seeking to weaponize nuclear energy.

Iranian protesters have in the past refused to step on Israeli and American flags printed on the ground by authorities for Iranians to walk over in an act of defiance against the regime.