Israel's Mossad abducted former Iranian deputy defence minister Ali Reza Asgari in Turkiye in 2006, interrogated him about the disappearance of Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad, and later killed him, according to an investigation by The New York Times.

Axar.az reports, citing the Jerusalem Post, that according to Asgari's wife, he disappeared from a hotel in Istanbul in December 2006.

Asgari, a general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, had maintained contact with senior Hezbollah officials and arrived in Lebanon shortly after Arad disappeared.

Israel denied for years any involvement in Asgari’s disappearance. However, a former US official claimed that Israeli representatives later told their American counterparts during discussions that Asgari had been killed.

According to a former senior US official, Asgari was questioned aboard a vessel for several weeks before his body was dumped into the Black Sea.

The report said the operation failed to establish whether Asgari had any information about Arad, who disappeared after his aircraft was shot down over Lebanon in 1986.

According to three former senior Iranian officials, a classified report compiled following the search concluded that Arad had died in Nabi Chit in 1988 and was likely buried in the area.

Israeli officials told the newspaper that the leading theory is now that Arad was executed in retaliation for the killing of the brother of Ahmad Shukr, a retired Lebanese security official, who died in a battle with Israeli troops on the same night in 1988.