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Fakhrizadeh died in a hospital after an attack in the city of Absard, about 70 kilometers east of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Details of the attack have not been confirmed, but according to state media, the car he was traveling in was first hit by a bomb and then attacked by armed men.
Three or four of the attackers are said to have died in the subsequent exchange of fire.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says there are strong indications that Israel is behind the attack.
– Terrorists killed a prominent Iranian researcher today. This cowardice, that there are strong indications that Israel is behind it, shows that the culprits are very belligerent, Zarif writes on Twitter.
Nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in an assassination attempt on the outskirts of Tehran.
Photo: Wana News Agency / Reuters
– Remember this name
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Fakhrizadeh led the Iranian nuclear program and in 2008 was included in the US sanctions list.
It is not clear what position he held now.
In 2018, he was appointed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference.
– Remember this name, said Netanyahu, who accuses Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Moshen Fakhrizadeh during a press conference in Tel Aviv. April 30, 2018.
Photo: Amir Cohen / Reuters
Directed nuclear program
After President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on the Fakhrizadeh-led organization, known by the acronym SPND.
According to the US authorities, it was a military organization that considered opportunities to develop nuclear weapons.
The Iranian authorities announce that they want to develop such weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed in a 2015 report that Fakhrizadeh had previously led a program examining “a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program,” but that work was halted in the early 2000s, according to the IAEA.
Fakhrizadeh was seriously injured in the attack and later died from his injuries.
Photo: AFP
Mossad Prosecutor
It is not known who was behind the attack, but the Israeli intelligence service Mossad is accused of having killed at least four Iranian nuclear investigators previously.
Iranian security services arrested and convicted several people who allegedly contributed to the attacks, and Western intelligence sources confirmed to various media that Mossad was pulling the strings.
“The deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group funded, trained and armed by Israeli intelligence,” NBC News concluded in 2012.
Sentenced to death
Swedish-Iranian researcher Ahmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death by an Iranian court in 2017 after being found guilty of providing information to Mossad about two Iranian nuclear scientists who died. Djalali has not yet been executed.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard says in an announcement that the attack on Fakhrizadeh will be avenged, Reuters reports.
