Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran’s nuclear program, was put on notice in 2018. At a press event unveiling a warehouse full of Iranian nuclear documents stolen by the Mossad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned the name of the obscure scientist several times.

According to the New York Times, killing Fakhrizadeh in an aerial drone strike was out of the question. Any UAV large enough to fly the long distance between Israel and Iran would have been easily detectable. This also ruled out using a drone as an “eye in the sky” as the IDF surveils Gaza.

The Mossad settled on a remotely operated sniper rifle, capable of firing 600 rounds per minute. The issue came down to the time gaps, there would be a slight delay: What the operator saw on the screen was already a moment old, and adjusting the aim to compensate would take another moment, all while Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s car is in motion. This created a lag time of 1.6 seconds. So artificial intelligence was brought in to compensate for the gun’s recoil, the 1.6 second time lag, and the speed of Fakhrizadeh’s car.