Senior Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who Israel alleged led the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program until its dissolution in the early 2000s, was “killed” in an ambush near Tehran.
Fakhrizadeh was shot and wounded “by terrorists” in his vehicle in Absard, a suburb in eastern Tehran, and then succumbed to his injuries in what amounted to a “martyr’s death,” the Foreign Ministry said on Friday. Iran.
Local authorities had confirmed Fakhrizadeh’s death several hours earlier and also said that several attackers were killed.
Fakhrizadeh served as head of the Defense Ministry’s Research and Innovation Organization at the time of his death.
Israel declined to immediately comment on the killing of Fakhrizadeh, whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once called at a press conference saying: “Remember that name.”
Israel has long been suspected of carrying out a series of targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists nearly 10 years ago.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian scientist who Israel allegedly ran the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program until its dissolution in the early 2000s was “assassinated” on Friday, state television said. [Fars News Agency via AP]
Photos and videos shared online showed a Nissan sedan with bullet holes in the windshield and blood pooled on the road.
The semi-official Fars news agency said witnesses heard the sound of an explosion and then machine gun fire. The attack targeted a car that Fakhrizadeh was in, the agency said.
The injured, including Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards, were later taken to a local hospital, the agency said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig report from Tehran said that according to the Fars news agency, Fakhrizadeh “was attacked by 3 or 4 unknown assailants.”
“They also say that 3-4 people died in that incident,” Baig said.
“The head of the Revolutionary Guard has said that assassinating nuclear scientists is an attempt by the hegemonic powers to prevent Iran from acquiring new science.”
A photo from a brochure provided by Iran’s state television (IRIB) shows the damage after an attack on Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s car near the capital Tehran. [IRIB News agency/AFP]‘Serious indications’ of the Israeli role
Iran’s foreign minister has alleged that the assassination has “serious indications” of an Israeli role.
“The terrorists today assassinated an eminent Iranian scientist. This cowardice, with serious indications of Israel’s role, shows a desperate warmongering of the perpetrators, ”Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Terrorists today assassinated an eminent Iranian scientist. This cowardice, with serious indications of the role of Israel, shows a desperate warmongering of the perpetrators.
Iran calls on the international community, and especially the EU, to end its shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror.
– Javad Zarif (@JZarif) November 27, 2020
Fakhrizadeh, 63, had been a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and was an expert in missile production. The Fars news agency said that this was the reason why the Israeli secret services had tried to eliminate him for many years.
A military adviser to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Israel of killing Fakhrizadeh in an attempt to provoke a war.
“In the last days of the political life of his … ally [US President Donald Trump], the Zionists (Israel) seek to intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war, ”Commander Hossein Dehghan tweeted.
He said Fakhrizadeh’s work will remain a “nightmare” for Iran’s enemies.
Fakhrizadeh was one of “the people who fight without claims behind the scenes of political battles and achieved martyrdom on this road,” Dehghan tweeted.
The US Pentagon also declined to comment on the reports of the attack.
‘Most damaging to Iran’s antagonists’
Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera that the only result of the assassination is that it “will make the Iranians more assertive when it comes to dealing with their antagonists.”
“It is too late for the Western intelligence agencies or the Israeli intelligence agencies or the terrorist organization MEK that has the backing of the EU and the United States; it is too late for them to do something about Iran’s nuclear program too.” Marandi said.
“Fifty years ago, if they carried out this attack, it would have had an impact. But now that Iran’s nuclear program is unfolding, it is very diverse. It has a lot of young scientists and these assassinations will be more damaging for Iran’s antagonists, I think for Iran.
“[Fakharizadeh] she was one of the first generation of people in Iran who helped develop nuclear technology, “said Marandi.
Fakhrizadeh ran Iran’s so-called Amad (Hope) program. Israel and the West have alleged that it was a military operation that sought the viability of building a nuclear weapon in Iran. Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says the Amad program ended in the early 2000s. Its inspectors now monitor Iranian nuclear sites.
The assassination comes as Trump, who has been fervently backed by Israel in his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, will leave office less than two months after losing the November presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.
In recent weeks, various US media reports have said, citing unidentified sources, that Trump has been seriously considering a military strike on Iran, including at its main nuclear site in Natanz.
In May 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and imposed tough economic sanctions that have only intensified since then.
Last year, the Trump administration also tried to make it harder for the Biden administration to return to the nuclear deal by reorienting Iranian entities and individuals that have already been sanctioned with new terrorism-related designations.
Friday’s assassination marks the second high-profile targeted assassination of a senior Iranian official following the assassination of the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, General Qassem Soleimani, in a US airstrike in January this year.
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