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Image source,Reuters
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (Mohsen Fakhrizadeh)
Iranian President Rouhani accused Israel of killing a leading nuclear scientist in the country on Friday (27), and said that this action will not slow down the country’s nuclear program.
Rouhani also stated that Iran will seize the opportunity to retaliate against the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
An Israeli cabinet minister said he did not know who was behind the gunman who ambushed Fahrizad’s car.
But Israel had previously accused the physicist of being a key figure in Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.
Fahrizad is Iran’s most famous nuclear scientist and heads the research and development department of the Ministry of Defense.
His assassination may exacerbate tensions between Iran and the United States and its close ally Israel over the nuclear program.
How did Iran react?
President Rouhani said on Saturday that his country would respond “in due course,” but that Fahrizad’s assassination would not prompt Iran to make a hasty decision.
“The enemies of Iran must know that the Iranian people and officials are brave and will not let this criminal act go unanswered,” he told a television cabinet meeting.
“In due course, they will be held accountable for this crime,” he added.
In an earlier statement, the president accused “the mercenaries of the tyrannical Zionist (Zionist) regime,” referring to Israel, as the masters behind the attack.
“The murder of the martyr Fahrizad shows the desperation of our enemies and the depth of their hatred … His martyrdom will not slow down our development.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei also called for the “punishment” of the main messenger “and those who commanded” the attack in a tweet on Saturday.
His military adviser, Hossein Dehghan, had previously promised to “hit” the attackers with thunder.
The New York Times cited three US officials, including two intelligence officials, who said Israel was behind the attack. But Israeli Cabinet Minister Tzachi Hanegbi said on Saturday he “doesn’t know” who is behind the scenes.
In April 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu specifically mentioned Fahrizad’s name in his presentation on Iran’s nuclear program.
According to an Israeli news website N12 reported on Saturday, Israeli embassies around the world have entered a state of high alert.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif called on the international community to “condemn these domestic terrorist acts.”
Image source,EPA
The scene of the attack on Fahrizad
What is the background?
At the time of the assassination, public opinion is renewing attention on the increase in the amount of enriched uranium produced by Iran. Enriched uranium is an important part of civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons.
In 2015, Iran reached an agreement with six world powers to restrict the country’s enriched uranium production, but since US President Trump abandoned the agreement in 2018, Iran has been violating the agreement without hesitation. However, it insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
US President-elect Biden vowed that despite long-term opposition from Israel, he would reengage with Iran after he took office as US President in January.
The former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Brennan, said that the murder of scientists is a “criminal” and “highly reckless” behavior that can escalate conflicts in the region.
He said in a series of tweets that Fahrizad’s death “may provoke fatal reprisals and a new round of regional conflict.”
Brennan added that he did not know “whether a foreign government authorized or committed the murder of Fahrizad.”
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres urged restraint, and on Saturday a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry called on all parties “not to take any action that could further aggravate the situation.”
“A few weeks before the new US government takes office, space must be set aside for negotiations with Iran in order to negotiate a settlement of disputes over Iran’s nuclear program,” said a statement from the Ministry of Relations. Foreign of Germany.
Analysis: Lyse Doucet, Chief Correspondent, International Affairs, BBC
The past few weeks have been extraordinary: When the countdown begins on January 20, President-elect Biden will take further action against Iran after he takes office, including a return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
Last week, Saudi Crown Prince Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had a not-so-secret meeting in Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials denied the meeting. After the assassination occurred, it sent another signal that Salman and Netanyahu saw this window as an excellent opportunity to deliver a fatal blow to their former enemy Iran over a period of time. It is already a challenge for the new US government to reengage with Iran. After the murder, the future course is complicated.
All parties know that this is also a time of risk. Iranian President Rouhani declared that Iran is “too smart not to fall into Israel’s trap.”
If you retaliate immediately, you can get a stronger counterattack and slide into a bigger crisis, which can jeopardize any chance to start a new era in January.
Image source,EPA
An Iranian student burned the American flag in the capital, Tehran, to express his anger at the attack.
Why is this scientist important?
The Iranian Defense Ministry said that on Friday, in the town of Absard, east of Tehran, the attacker aimed at Fahrizad’s car and exchanged shots with his bodyguard, the famous scientist was seriously injured.
Fahrizad later died in hospital from his injuries.
The attacker’s status is unclear.
For a long time, Western security activists have described Fahrizad as an extremely powerful and important figure in Iran’s nuclear program.
According to secret documents obtained by Israel in 2018, he led a project to make nuclear weapons.
At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stated that he identified Fahrizad as the lead scientist on the project and urged people to “remember this name.”
In 2015, the New York Times compared him to Oppenheimer, the physicist who guided the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic weapon during World War II.
Fahrizad is a physics professor and is said to have led “Project Amad”, a secret project supposedly established in 1989 to study the possibility of nuclear bombs.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated that the plan was closed in 2003; However, Netanyahu claimed that documents recovered in 2018 showed that the Fahrizad-led plan was continuing to carry out the Amad project in secret. job.
The IAEA (the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency) has long wanted to speak to him as part of its investigation of Iran’s nuclear program.
The outside world suspected that Iran used the plan as a cover to develop a nuclear bomb, prompting the European Union, the United States and the United Nations to impose severe sanctions in 2010.
Since Trump abandoned the 2015 deal, tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated. The assassination of General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, by the United States in January this year has pushed bilateral tensions to a peak.
