[ad_1]
DUBAI: An Iranian scientist long suspected by the West of plotting a secret nuclear bomb program died Friday in an ambush near Tehran that could spark a confrontation between Iran and its enemies in the final weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who according to Iranian media died in hospital after armed assassins shot him dead in his car, will also complicate any effort by US President-elect Joe Biden to revive the detente in the presidency of Barack Obama.
Iran pointed the finger at Israel, while implying that the assassination had Trump’s blessing leaving. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter about “serious indications of (an) Israeli role.”
The Supreme Leader’s military adviser, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed to “strike like thunder on the murderers of this oppressed martyr.” “In the final days of the political life of their … ally (Trump), the Zionists seek to intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war,” Hossein Dehghan tweeted.
The channels of the encrypted messaging app Telegram believed to be close to the elite of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard reported that the main security body, the Supreme National Security Council, called an emergency meeting with senior military officials present.
Israel declined to comment. The White House, the Pentagon, the US State Department and the CIA also declined to comment, as did Biden’s transition team.
Fakhrizadeh has been described by Western and Israeli intelligence services for years as the mysterious leader of a covert atomic bomb program halted in 2003, which Israel and the United States accuse Tehran of trying to restore.
Iran has long denied trying to use nuclear energy as a weapon.
“Unfortunately, the medical team failed to revive (Fakhrizadeh), and a few minutes ago, this manager and scientist achieved the high status of martyrdom after years of effort and struggle,” Iran’s armed forces said in a statement.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said “the terrorists blew up another car” before firing at a vehicle carrying Fakhrizadeh and his bodyguards in an ambush outside the capital.
Subsequently, there was a heavy presence of security forces stopping cars in Tehran in an apparent search for the killers, witnesses said.
Trump, who lost his re-election bid to Biden on November 3 and leaves office on January 20, withdrew the United States from a deal reached under Obama, his predecessor, who lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbing his program. nuclear.
Biden has said he will aim to restore that deal, although many analysts say it will be a challenging goal.
Robert Malley, who served as Obama’s adviser on Iran and has informally advised Biden’s team, said Fakhrizadeh’s assassination was among a series of moves that occurred during Trump’s final weeks that appear to be aimed at making it difficult for him to Biden reconnects with Iran.
“One purpose is simply to inflict so much damage on Iran economically and its nuclear program while they can, and the other could be to complicate President Biden’s ability to resume diplomacy and resume the nuclear deal,” Malley said, adding that he would not. speculate on who was behind Friday’s murder.
A US official confirmed this month that Trump asked his military advisers for a plan for a possible attack on Iran. Trump chose not to do so to avoid a broader conflict in the Middle East.
In January, Trump ordered a US drone strike in Baghdad that killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at a US base in Iraq.
US Senator Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the US Senate’s Middle East subcommittee, said on Twitter that “this assassination does not make the United States, Israel, or the world safer.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged restraint to avoid escalating tensions, his spokesman said.
Iran’s envoy to the UN, Majid Takht Ravanchi, said in a letter to Guterres that Tehran “reserves the right to take all necessary measures” to defend itself. He also called on the UN Security Council to condemn the murder and take action “against its perpetrators.”
Remember that name
Fakhrizadeh did not have a public profile, but was thought to have spearheaded what the UN nuclear watchdog and US intelligence services believe was a coordinated nuclear weapons program in Iran, shelved in 2003.
He was the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2015 “final assessment” of open questions about Iran’s nuclear program. The report said it monitored activities “in support of a possible military dimension to (Iran’s) nuclear program.”
He was a central figure in a presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018 accusing Iran of continuing to search for nuclear weapons.
“Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” Netanyahu said at the time.
Michael Mulroy, a senior Pentagon official during the Trump administration, said Fakhrizadeh’s assassination would delay Iran’s nuclear program and that alert levels should be raised in countries where Iran could retaliate.
Sheikh Naim Qassem, deputy leader of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, blamed the “heinous attack” on “those sponsored by the United States and Israel” in an interview with Al Manar television, saying that the answer lay in the hands of Iran.
During the final months of the Trump presidency, Israel has been making peace with the Arab Gulf states that share hostility toward Iran.
This week, Netanyahu traveled to Saudi Arabia and met with its crown prince, an Israeli official said, in what would be the first publicly confirmed visit by an Israeli leader. Israeli media said they were joined by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
