Who is the “thinking mind” of the Iranian nuclear program?

Tehran: Nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whom Iran accused Israel of assassinating him on Friday, belongs to a group of personalities who spent their lives in the shadows, whose name was made public after his death.

Documentary information is scant on the prominent scientist who died after being attacked near Tehran on Friday, but what is certain is the importance of his role.

An indication of his position was his attendance at a meeting with the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in January 2019, according to photos distributed by the Supreme Leader’s office after Fakhrizadeh’s death.

The world was traveling in an armored vehicle with protective equipment, and his assassination was followed by a warning from the Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, Major General Muhammad Baqeri, of “harsh retaliation”.

It is also important, from the point of view of those behind his assassination near Tehran, to carry out a “complex” operation during which a “completely new” method was adopted, the secretary of the Supreme Council of Tehran said on Monday. National Security, Ali Shamkhani, to Iranian media.

What role did Fakhrizadeh, who died at 59 years old, have according to the Iranian media?

Fakhrizadeh officially held the position of Head of the Research and Innovation Organization of the Ministry of Defense.

Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said the deceased was his assistant and that he played an “important role in defense innovations” as well as “nuclear defense”.

The thinking nuclear mind

Was he, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused him in April 2018, at the forefront of a “military” nuclear program that Tehran has repeatedly denied?

According to Karim Sajjadpour, a researcher at the Carnegie Center, it takes “probably months or even years” to assess the full consequences of Fakhrizadeh’s death.

“Those who really understand their delicate day-to-day role in Iran’s nuclear activities do not speak out, and those who speak do not know it,” the Iranian affairs researcher wrote on Twitter.

Shamkhani said that “the services provided by” Fakhrizadeh “cannot be detected,” and first described him as “sardar”, a Persian word used to refer to high-ranking military officers of the Revolutionary Guard.

The US media considered Fakhrizadeh the “first target” of the Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) and “the thinking mind of the Iranian nuclear program.”

Shamkhani said the late world was threatened “twenty years ago” by “the enemy.”

Three years before his name was mentioned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Fakhrizadeh’s name appeared in a December 2015 International Atomic Energy Agency report.

The Vienna-based UN agency said Fakhri Zadeh had overseen “activities based on a possible military dimension” within the nuclear program that began “in the late 1980s” before it was brought under his administration as part of a Program. He named it “Amad”, and it will be abandoned “at the end of 2003.”

In March 2007, Fakhrizadeh was mentioned among a group of people against whom the UN Security Council has imposed sanctions for his alleged role in the “nuclear or ballistic missile program” in Iran.

In Resolution 1747, the Security Council declared Fakhrizadeh to be “a high-ranking scientist in the Ministry of Defense (…) and the former director of the Center for Physical Research.”

He noted that the International Atomic Energy Agency requested “to meet with him to ask him about the activities of the center,” but Iran “rejected” this matter.

One year after the Security Council resolution, in 2008 the United States included Fakhrizadeh’s name on the “black list” of persons subject to sanctions for “activities and operations that contributed to the development of Iran’s nuclear program”, which in that He was currently under UN sanctions.

These sanctions were lifted with the beginning of the implementation of the agreement on the nuclear program concluded in 2015, between Iran, on the one hand, and the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, on the other.

After the president of the United States, Donald Trump, unilaterally withdrew from this agreement in 2018, Washington reapplied the sanctions that had been imposed on Fakhrizadeh.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, told state television about “good cooperation (with Fakhrizadeh) in the field of nuclear defense.”

He added that he had a doctorate “in nuclear physics and engineering” and worked on his thesis with Fereydoun Abbasi Dawani, the former head of the Iranian organization, who survived the 2010 assassination attempt.

The former official spoke to local media about a “close friend”, Fakhrizadeh, and “close professional cooperation for 34 years,” indicating that he and he were on the front lines during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).

He added that “he worked in all fields of support for the country’s nuclear activities”, especially those related to the “enrichment” of uranium, calling him “the capable and distinguished scientist.”

Abbasi Dawani added that Fakhrizadeh’s role in the field of science rises “to the rank of Soleimani martyr,” referring to Major General Qassem Soleimani, a former Quds Force commander in the Revolutionary Guard and one of the most prominent Iranian officers. , who was killed in a US airstrike near Baghdad airport in January. last.

Hours after Fakhrizadeh’s murder, his widow told state television that “his work was important to him” and described him as a “kind and understanding husband.”

“He loved his country. I ask (the officials) to follow the path that he traced, so that his blood is not wasted,” he added.