Thanks for responses but no one offered one that struck me as convincing, particularly Keith's that modern states rely too much on high tech and mobile phone use. Do you mean to tell me that IN A WAR their communication networks aren't encrypted or that its users are too inept not to take precautions? The Iranians seem very smart and advanced in producing ballistic missiles and aiming them with precision, so why this glaring lapse when it comes to protecting top-ranking people like the head of intelligence?

Keith speculates that there aren't that many who have been assassinated -- but the question is why any at all? Has the entire social and military structure been so infiltrated that nothing can be done? I remain deeply baffled by this lapse -- even demolishing entire apartment buildings and killing 50 people to get one doesn't address the basic problem.