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- Iran blamed arch enemy Israel and warned of severe revenge after the assassination of its most prominent nuclear scientist.
- The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh threatens to increase tensions between Iran and the United States and its close ally Israel.
- Military advisers to Iran’s supreme leader have accused Israel of trying to provoke a war by assassination.
Iran said one of its most prominent nuclear scientists was killed in an attack on the outskirts of Tehran on Friday, blaming arch-enemy Israel and warning of “severe revenge.”
The assassination threatens to increase tensions between Iran and the United States and its close ally Israel, with some warning of the risk of a major conflict in the Middle East.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 59, was “seriously injured” when the assailants attacked his car before participating in a shootout with his bodyguards, the Defense Ministry said.
He added that Fakhrizadeh, who headed the ministry’s research and innovation organization, was later “martyred” after doctors failed to revive him.
The United States imposed sanctions on Fakhrizadeh in 2008 for “activities and transactions that contributed to the development of Iran’s nuclear program,” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once described him as the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Fakhrizadeh was attacked while traveling near the town of Absard in Damavand county in eastern Tehran province.
Photo provided by Iran’s state television (IRIB) showing Fakhrizadeh’s damaged car after it was attacked near the capital Tehran.
A photograph distributed by Iran’s state television on November 27, 2020 shows Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s damaged car after it was attacked near the capital, Tehran.
A reporter for state television said a van carrying explosives hidden under a pile of wood exploded in front of his car, before it was sprayed with bullets from a van.
Footage from the scene showed a black sedan on the side of the road, its windshield riddled with bullet holes. A pool of blood was seen on the asphalt.
‘Act of state terror’
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said there were “serious indications of an Israeli role” in the assassination.
“Terrorists assassinated an eminent Iranian scientist today,” he tweeted.
“This cowardice, with serious indications of Israel’s role, shows a desperate warmongering of the perpetrators.”
Zarif called on the international community to “condemn this act of state terror.”
The New York Times said a US official and two other intelligence officials confirmed that Israel was behind the attack, without elaborating.
READ | Former CIA chief condemns ‘criminal’ killing of Iranian
A Netanyahu spokesman questioned by AFP in Jerusalem declined to comment on the attack.
Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Hatami said Fakhrizadeh had a “major role in defense innovations” and had been repeatedly “threatened with assassination and followed.”
Speaking on television, Hatami said he “handled nuclear defense and did extensive work,” without elaborating.
He linked the assassination of Fakhrizadeh to the assassination of Iran’s top general, Qasem Soleimani, as “completely related.”
Soleimani, who led the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, was killed in a US airstrike near the Baghdad airport in January.
Days later, Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Iraqi bases that host US and coalition troops, but Trump refrained from giving any further military response.
‘Bitter and strong blow’
The chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, called Fakhrizdeh’s death “a severe and severe blow to the country’s defense system” and warned of “severe revenge.”
Fakhrizadeh’s assassination comes less than two months before Joe Biden takes office as president of the United States.
Biden has promised a return to diplomacy with Iran after four years of hardliners under Trump, who pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and began reimposing crippling sanctions.
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At the time, Trump said the deal did not offer sufficient guarantees to prevent Tehran from acquiring an atomic bomb. Iran has always denied that it wants such a weapon.
Trump retweeted reports of Fakhrizadeh’s assassination on Friday, without commenting himself.
Hossein Dehghan, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader and a former senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accused Israel of trying to provoke a war by assassination.
“In the last days of the political life of their ally in the game (Trump), the Zionists are trying to intensify the pressure on Iran to create a full-blown war.” he tweeted.
“We will strike the killers like lightning.”
Hossein Dehghan
Many Iranian newspapers covered Fakhrizadeh’s murder on the front pages of their Saturday editions.
The conservative Resalat called him the “pride of (Iran’s) nuclear industry” and said his assassination showed that “the West cannot be trusted.”
Wider conflagration
Former CIA director John Brennan warned that the assassination ran the risk of sparking a wider conflagration in the Middle East.
“This was a criminal and very reckless act. There is a risk of lethal reprisals and a new round of regional conflict,” Brennan tweeted.
“Iranian leaders would do well to await the return of responsible American leadership on the world stage and resist the urge to answer against the perceived culprits.”
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls Gaza, condemned the killing.
Photo near the capital Tehran provided by Iran’s state television (IRIB) showing the area of the road where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed.
Images made available by Iran’s state television (IRIB) showing remains of the area where a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed.
“This assassination comes in the context of persistent American and Zionist threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.
Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on International Relations said on Twitter that “the goal behind the assassination was not to hamper (Iran’s) nuclear program but to undermine diplomacy.”
He noted that recent high-level visits by US officials to Israel and Saudi Arabia “raised the flags that something is being cooked” to “provoke Iran and complicate Biden’s diplomatic push.”
The Fakhrizadeh assassination is the latest in a series of killings of nuclear scientists in Iran in recent years that the Islamic republic has blamed on Israel.
The New York Times reported in early November that Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command was secretly shot and killed in Tehran by two Israeli agents on a motorcycle at the behest of Washington.
Iran said the report was based on “fabricated information” and reaffirmed its denial of the presence of any of the group’s members in the Islamic republic.
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