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VIENNA / DUBAI (Reuters) – Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated on Friday, led such a secret life that even his age was a secret, but much is known about the clandestine nuclear weapons program he is believed to have led.
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it suspected Fakhrizadeh oversaw the secret work to place a warhead on a ballistic missile, test high-powered explosives suitable for a nuclear weapon and process uranium.
Iran insists it never had such a program or the ambition to build a bomb. The IAEA and US intelligence agencies believe it had a coordinated weapons program that it halted in 2003.
Western suspicions that Iran would resume that program were at the heart of the deal struck in a 2015 deal under which Tehran agreed with world powers to halt its nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Israel, Iran’s arch nemesis, strongly opposed that deal and President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.
Fakhrizadeh’s assassination is a blow to Iran as it was closely protected and protected from the public. But Iranian officials say Iran has a network of scientists to fill any gaps.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s highest authority, vowed on Saturday to retaliate for Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, saying officials must continue “the scientific and technical efforts of the martyr Fakhrizadeh in all fields in which he participated. “.
Iran stepped up nuclear work after Washington withdrew from the 2015 deal, exceeding the limits set by the deal on the production of enriched uranium, which can be refined into bomb material, though Tehran still has far less than its pre-2015 arsenal.
MAIN ROLE
Even when Fakhrizadeh remained in the shadows, the IAEA in 2011 identified him as the alleged head of the AMAD Plan, which is believed to have been established some two decades ago to oversee major elements of the nuclear weapons program.
While that military program is believed to have been shelved in 2003, the IAEA said in its 2011 report that some related work continued and Fakhrizadeh retained “the lead organizing role,” citing one member state for information.
The IAEA said in a 2015 “final assessment” that even those related efforts appeared to have ended in 2009. Fakhrizadeh was the only Iranian scientist mentioned in that 2015 report.
For years, aided by intrusive new inspection powers, the IAEA produced reports showing that Iran was sticking to the main limits imposed by the nuclear deal, which aimed to extend the time needed to produce enough nuclear material for a bomb, should that be. it was that of Iran. goal, one year from two to three months.
After Trump entered the White House promising to scrap the nuclear deal, Israel stepped up a campaign saying Iran had lied about the extent of its past nuclear activities.
In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had seized a huge “archive” of Iranian documents showing that Tehran had done more work than was previously known.
Israel shared much of the material with the IAEA and its allies. Diplomats say the file appears to have included additional information on activities carried out during Fakhrizadeh’s leadership of the AMAD Plan in the early 2000s.
“Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” Netanyahu had said in the 2018 presentation on the material.
MOVING UNDERGROUND
Since then, the IAEA has inspected several sites possibly linked to the AMAD Plan, filling in some information gaps but so far not revealing important new areas of weapons work, diplomats say.
It is unclear exactly how long Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon if it decided to do so.
Its main enrichment plant at Natanz, built underground apparently to withstand shelling, is operating at a fraction of its pre-2015 capacity due to the deal, but Iran is now enriching itself at other facilities and its low-enriched uranium reserve is increasing.
Iran has also moved more efficient centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium, to the hardened underground plant.
Ariane Tabatabai, a Middle East researcher at the German Marshall Fund and Columbia University, said Fakhrizadeh’s death was a blow, likening it to the January assassination in a US drone strike of Iran’s top military commander, Qassem. Soleimani.
But he said his work in creating an infrastructure to support Iran’s nuclear work meant that “his death will not fundamentally alter the course of Iran’s nuclear program.”
This was shared by Iranian officials.
“He created a network of scientists who will continue his work,” said Fereydoon Abbasi, an Iranian nuclear scientist and former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, who survived an assassination attempt in 2010.
(Written by Francois Murphy; Edited by Edmund Blair)
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