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In a major event in the Iranian nuclear archive, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed near the capital, Tehran, according to the Iranian Defense Ministry.
Fakhri Zadeh died in hospital after being attacked in Damavand district. According to Iranian media reports, the attackers fired at his car.
Western intelligence agencies consider Fakhrizadeh responsible for a secret nuclear weapons program in Iran. Diplomats reportedly described him as “the father of the Iranian nuclear bomb.”
Iran vowed revenge for the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and blamed Israel.
The assassination is believed to have won US support, as President Trump is known to have considered attacking Iranian nuclear facilities earlier this month.
Who is Mohsen Fakhryzadeh?
Fakhri Zadeh was born in 1958 in the Iranian city of Qom, and he joined the Revolutionary Guard after the overthrow of Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979, and is said to have held a high rank in the Revolutionary Guard even as he became a scholar.
He has worked as a professor of physics at Imam Hussein University in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
He was considered the most famous Iranian nuclear scientist, but he made sure to stay out of the spotlight.
Western security sources have long said that he has great influence and a key role in Iran’s nuclear program.
A landmark report by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency in 2011 identified Fakhrizadeh as a central figure in Iran’s covert program to develop the technology and skills necessary to make atomic bombs.
Image posted, EPA
The report indicated that at that time it could still have played a role in that activity.
Agency inspectors have repeatedly invited him to speak about his role, which he has been avoiding.
United Nations records show that he was among 8 Iranians who were subject to international financial and travel restrictions under a UN resolution adopted in 2007 because of their links to “nuclear or ballistic weapons” research.
According to classified documents Israel obtained in 2018, Fakhrizadeh oversaw a program to produce nuclear weapons.
The Israeli prime minister said at the time that Fakhrizadeh was the program’s chief scientist and urged people to “remember this name.”
In 2018, Netanyahu revealed what he described as Iran’s secret nuclear archive.
In 2015, the New York Times compared him to the physicist who led the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, who produced the first atomic weapons during World War II.
Fakhrizadeh is said to have led the so-called secret “Amad” project, which was established in 1989 to investigate the possibility of building a nuclear bomb.
It was suspended in 2003, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, although Netanyahu said documents obtained in 2018 showed that Fakhri Zadeh continued to secretly work on the “AMAD” project.
Opinions differ on the extent of the impact of Fakhrizadeh’s assassination on the Iranian nuclear program.
“It is possible that Fakhri Zada knew more about Iran’s nuclear program than anyone alive, and the loss of his leadership, knowledge and institutional memory is undoubtedly a blow to the Islamic Republic,” says Karim Sadjadpour, researcher Carnegie Endowment Principal.
On the other hand, says Vipin Narang, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “many of the participants in the program can design a nuclear warhead now if necessary, so Iran may now have a greater drive to arm itself. “.
Sanctions and agreement
Suspicions that Iran was using the program as a cover to develop a nuclear bomb are reported to have led the European Union, the United States and the United Nations to impose harsh sanctions on Tehran in 2010.
The 2015 deal, reached by Iran with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany, imposed restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
But the president of the United States, Donald Trump, withdrew from the agreement. And earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran now has 12 times the amount of enriched uranium it can possess under the deal.
Fakhrizadeh’s assassination came at a time of growing tension between the United States and Iran and peaked in January with the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Washington.
