On 10 April 1999, 6:45 a.m local time, Ali Sayyad Shirazi, the deputy chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, was assassinated while leaving his home for work.

[3] He was killed by an Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) assailant, an Iranian opposition group, who was disguised as a street cleaner and handed Shirazi a letter just before shooting him.

[6] According to Rahim Safavi, commenting 11 years after Sayyad Shirazi's death, the assassination operation was allegedly carried out at Saddam Hussein's order.

[8] A MEK spokesman said that Shirazi had been targeted because for "purging and executing military personnel and for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of child soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War, when he commanded Iran's ground forces.

"[9] Shahin Gobadi, the spokesman for MEK in Paris, told the Associated Press in Cairo via a telephone call that "the group's units inside Iran were responsible for the killing.