While the assassination method was not sophisticated, the killer's apparent knowledge of the victim and his commuting schedule seemed to reflect an intelligence lapse in Iran, where at least five scientists with connections to Iran's disputed nuclear program have been killed under mysterious circumstances since 2007.
Assassination became the method of choice, in effect putting a price tag on suicide terrorism, to be paid by those who recruited and dispatched the human bombs.
Image caption Secret memo: "The agents have been trained in all the methods of assassination" "The two agents concerned have been trained in all methods of assassination known to us," reads one memo from January 1942.
They would be considered far less trustworthy, and there was hardly any chance that the Mossad would reveal to non-Israelis some of its assassination unit's best methods.
Under the rubric of security they can allow themselves to do everything". Political scientist Yaron Ezrahi, in a similar argument, linked the use of assassination abroad to interrogation methods on Palestinians that Israeli and international human rights groups describe as torture.
"There are lots of sophisticated methods (of assassination) these days," a committee source said.
Though most Nigerians strongly disapprove of their violent methods — bombings, assassinations, bank robberies, and prison break-ins — some sympathize with their criticisms of the state.
His favoured method was assassination of the most important contemporary enemy of the Muslims, the apostate "Pharaoh", a clear reference to the president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat.
This method of assassination, in which a woman kisses a painting of her beloved and falls dead, is what most people who have read "The White Devil," John Webster's extra-gory revenge tragedy, seem to remember from it.
At least, unlike in today's Nigeria, where assassination is the preferred method of getting rid of opposition nuisances, my father's enemies apparently wanted him alive, just well tormented.
