Iran accuses Israel and vows to ‘descend like lightning’ to avenge assassination of prominent nuclear scientist

IRAN “WILL DESCEND like lightning” to avenge the death of a top nuclear scientist who was assassinated yesterday, said an adviser to the country’s supreme leader.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whom Israel allegedly led the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program until its dissolution in the early 2000s, was killed in a shooting on Friday.

His death prompted Hossein Dehghan, a presidential candidate in Iran’s 2021 elections and an advisor to its supreme leader, to echo an earlier claim that Israel was behind the attack and issue a warning.

“In the final days of their ally’s political life in the game, the Zionists seek to intensify and increase pressure on Iran to wage a full-blown war,” wrote Dehghan, who appears to refer to the last days in office of the president American Donald Trump.

“We will descend like lightning on the murderers of this oppressed martyr and make them repent of their actions.”

Tehran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had suggested that Israel was behind the attack, in which he said that “terrorists killed an eminent Iranian scientist.”

“This cowardice, with serious indications of Israel’s role, shows a desperate warmongering from the perpetrators,” Zarif tweeted.

“Iran calls on the international community, and especially the EU, to end their shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror.”

Israel declined to immediately comment on the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once mentioned 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 a decade ago.

State television on Friday cited sources confirming the death. He said he would offer more information soon.

Fakhrizadeh ran Iran’s so-called Amad or Hope program, which according to the International Atomic Energy Agency ended in the early 2000s.

IAEA inspectors now monitor Iranian nuclear sites as part of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

However, Israel and some other countries have alleged that the program 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.