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At the beginning of her article, the author referred to the danger that threatens nuclear scientists in Iran. At least four nuclear scientists have been killed in the last decade in car bombings and shootings, while several other scientists have been targeted but survived. On Friday, gunmen shot Mohsen Fakhri Zadeh, the engineer in charge of Iran’s alleged secret nuclear program, to develop an atomic bomb in his car, in an ambush in the city of Absard outside the Iranian capital, Tehran.
The writer mentioned that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, is the most famous Iranian nuclear scientist because he assumed responsibility for the Iranian nuclear program, “Project 111”. Following the assassination of his colleague Majid Shahriari in 2010, the United Nations described Mohsen Fakhrizadeh as a mastermind of Tehran’s efforts to obtain nuclear warheads.
The details of Friday’s attack remain unclear, but Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Republican Guard, accused those who attacked Mohsen Fakhrizadeh of working to prevent Iran from accessing modern science.
It should be noted that there is a long history of world powers carrying out a series of assassinations of scholars as a form of warfare. From WWII to the Cold War, arguing that scientists and engineers have the power to deflect military capabilities, placing them at the top of target lists.
The report stated that Iran had blamed Israel and the United States of America with the earlier killings of their academics, although both countries denied involvement in this.
The author explained that Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a professor of particle physics at the University of Tehran, was killed on 20 January 2010 with a bomb that apparently was equipped with a remote control and was attached to his motorcycle. At the time, Iranian government authorities, as well as his colleagues at the university, confirmed that Ali Mohammadi, who was described as “apolitical,” had nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program.
At the time, Ali Mughari, head of the science department at the University of Tehran, said of Ali Mohammadi: “He was a well-known professor, but not a political activist.” However, Ali Mohammadi signed a letter with hundreds of people, a year before his assassination, in which he expressed his support for the main opposition candidate, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, in the presidential elections that year.
The Iranian authorities still describe Ali Mohammadi, after his death, as a supporter of the government, and they have arrested several suspects and charged them with working for the Israeli intelligence service.
Eleven months after Ali Mohammadi’s assassination, Majid Shahriari, the nuclear scientist in charge of managing a “major project” for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was also assassinated. Shahryari’s car was reportedly stopped by a motorcycle driver and a bomb was planted on it, killing him and injuring his wife and driver, but both survived.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at the time that those behind the attack were “undoubtedly the Zionist regime” and Western governments, while the United States and Israel denied their involvement in this incident.
Fereydoun Abbasi, Shahriari’s colleague, was injured in a similar attack on the same day, but survived after being taken to hospital. Abbasi was the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization at the time, and the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on him. The United Nations described Abbasi as a senior scientist at the Defense Ministry and that he was “working closely” with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear program has also come under attack. Ahmadinejad admitted, at the time, that these cyberattacks had managed to “expose the centrifuges to a limited number of problems with the program.”
The writer added that Iranian scientist Dariush Rezaie Nejad also suffered a bloody fate in July 2011, when two gunmen on motorcycles shot him on Saturday afternoon, wounding his wife in the attack. Rezaei Nejad, a doctoral student at Nasir al-Din Tusi University, is believed to have been working on the detonator for nuclear bombs and was, according to Israeli reports, repeatedly seen entering a nuclear laboratory in northern Tehran.
Iranian authorities responded that this intelligence information was not correct and described Rezaei Nejad as nothing more than an academic. Iranian Intelligence Minister Haider Moslehi said at the time that “the student who was killed was not involved in nuclear projects and had nothing to do with the nuclear issue.”
The report noted that Iran has repeatedly denied any desire to build a nuclear bomb, but Western powers have insisted that Iran intends to do so. Tensions rose in 2011 as the United States, Israel and the European Union feared Iran was close to success in its alleged attempts to access fissile material.
The report added that in January 2012, less than a year later, Mustafa Ahmadi Roshan became the next target on the kill list. Another motorcycle driver was used in Roshan’s murder. This driver got into a Roshan car and placed a magnetic bomb on it, and Roshan and his driver died as a result.
Roshan was a professor at a technical university in Tehran and a department supervisor at the uranium enrichment laboratory in the city of Natanz. His death came a week after Iran’s top nuclear official announced that production would soon begin at the second-largest uranium enrichment site.
Two months ago, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency released a report claiming that Iranian scientists were involved in an ongoing covert effort to build a nuclear weapon. Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency issued a statement warning that “heinous action by the United States and Israel will not change the course of the Iranian nation.”
The United States condemned the assassination and denied any responsibility for this incident, while the Israeli military spokesperson issued a statement on Facebook, almost without denying Israel’s involvement in this incident. Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai wrote: “I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian world, but I certainly will not shed a tear on him.”
In that year, serious nuclear talks began between Iran and six world powers known as the 5 + 1 Group; It is the group of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States).
The killings stopped and the round of negotiations got under way, advancing at an irregular pace in recent years. In June 2013, Hassan Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator, became President of Iran.
In September, the new leader had participated in a phone call with then-US President Barack Obama, recording the highest level of talks between Iran and the United States since 1979. In four months, some provisions of the nuclear agreement were implemented, And in June 2015, Iran and the P5 + 1 had announced about a comprehensive agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
However, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the multilateral nuclear deal on May 8, 2018 and reimposed a series of severe sanctions on Iran. When Iran failed to mobilize enough European support to pressure the United States against the growing sanctions campaign against which it was exerting “maximum pressure”, Iran began to violate the terms of the agreement and resumed parts of the nuclear enrichment program that was suspended.
Tensions between the United States and Iran have risen since then, reaching several times what many called “the brink of war,” especially when the Trump administration ordered the assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.
The author concluded her report by confirming that President-elect Joe Biden, who participated in those negotiations during the Obama era, expressed his willingness to resume talks with Iran, but concerns are growing about the outgoing president’s plans for Iran and its Iranian facilities. enrichment of uranium during his last weeks in office.
