Iran’s Supreme Leader vows revenge for murdered scientist, accused of Israel

Iran’s supreme leader has demanded “ultimate punishment” for those behind the assassination of a scientist who led Tehran’s dissolved military nuclear program.

Iran has blamed Israel for an assassination that has raised fears that tensions in the Middle East will reignite.

After years of being in the shadows, the image of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was suddenly seen everywhere in the Iranian media, as his widow spoke on state television and officials publicly demanded revenge against Israel for the scientist’s murder.

Israel, long suspected of killing Iranian scientists a decade ago amid earlier tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, has yet to comment on Fakhrizadeh’s assassination on Friday (Saturday NZT).

However, the attack had the stamp of a carefully planned military-style ambush, as Israel has been accused of carrying out before.

The attack has renewed fears that Iran will counterattack the United States, Israel’s closest ally in the region, as it did earlier this year when a US drone strike killed a senior Iranian general.

The US military acknowledged moving an aircraft carrier back to the region, while an Iranian lawmaker suggested expelling the UN nuclear inspectors in response to the assassination.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Fakhrizadeh “the country’s prominent and distinguished nuclear and defense scientist.”

Khamenei, who has the last word on all state affairs, said Iran’s first priority after the assassination was the “ultimate punishment of the perpetrators and those who ordered it.” He did not elaborate.

Speaking earlier on Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel for the assassination.

“We will respond to the murder of the martyr Fakhrizadeh at the right time,” Rouhani said. “The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap of the Zionists. They are thinking of creating chaos.”

Both Rouhani and Khamenei said Fakhrizadeh’s death would not stop Iran’s nuclear program. The civilian atomic program has continued its experiments and is now enriching a growing uranium reserve to 4.5 percent purity in response to the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal after the United States’ withdrawal from the deal in 2018.

That’s still well below the 90 percent weapons grade levels, though experts warn that Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium for at least two atomic bombs if it decides to pursue them.

Analysts have likened Fakhrizadeh to being on par with Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led America’s Manhattan Project in World War II who created the atomic bomb.

Fakhrizadeh spearheaded Iran’s so-called AMAD program, which Israel and the West have alleged was a military operation seeking the viability of building a nuclear weapon.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says the “structured program” ended in 2003. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Fakhrizadeh’s widow appeared anonymous on state television wearing a black chador, saying her death would cause another 1,000 people to start working.

“He wanted to be martyred and his wish came true,” he said.

Hardline Iranian media has begun circulating commemorative images showing Fakhrizadeh standing next to an image of Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, cradled by a machine gun, who was killed by the United States in a drone strike in January.

Soleimani’s death prompted Iran to retaliate with a ballistic missile barrage that injured dozens of US soldiers in Iraq.

Tehran also has forces at its disposal across Israel, including troops and proxies in neighboring Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Islamic Jihad, and to a lesser extent Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.

The naval forces of the Iranian Guard routinely follow and also have tense encounters with the forces of the United States Navy in the Persian Gulf.

Hours after the attack, the Pentagon announced that it had returned the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to the Middle East, an unusual move since the carrier has already spent months in the region.

He cited the reduction of US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as the reason for the decision and said “it was prudent to have additional defensive capabilities in the region to deal with any contingency.”

Iran has carried out targeted attacks against Israeli interests abroad for the murder of its scientists, as in the case of the three Iranians recently freed in Thailand in exchange for a detained British-Australian academic.

Iran could also expel inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who have provided an unprecedented real-time look at Iran’s nuclear program since the deal.

Nasrollah Pezhmanfar, a hard-line lawmaker, said a statement could be read on Sunday calling for the expulsion of “IAEA spy inspections,” as quoted by the official website of parliament.

Friday’s attack occurred in Absard, a town east of the capital that is a haven for the country’s elite. Iranian state television said an old truck with explosives hidden under a load of wood exploded near a sedan carrying Fakhrizadeh.

When Fakhrizadeh’s sedan stopped, at least five gunmen got out and attacked the car with rapid fire, Tasnim news agency said.

The accuracy of the attack led to suspicions that Israel’s Mossad intelligence service was involved. The CIA separately declined to comment on Saturday’s attack.

State media have only said that the attack killed Fakhrizadeh, although a statement on Saturday from the European Union described the incident as the death of “an Iranian government official and several civilians.” EU officials did not respond to requests for comment.

In Tehran, a small group of hardline protesters burned images of Trump and President-elect Joe Biden, who has said his administration will consider re-entering Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

While burning an American and Israeli flag, the hardliners criticized Iran’s foreign minister who helped negotiate the nuclear deal, showing the challenge Tehran faces if officials choose to return to the deal.

On Saturday night, Fakhrizadeh’s family gathered at a mosque in central Tehran for his funeral, a website associated with Iranian state television reported.

The scientist’s body lay in an open coffin covered with a flag. Ebrahim Raisi, president of Iran’s Supreme Court and a prominent Shiite cleric, offered prayers over his body.