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And Israel has responded by putting its embassies on high alert after the attack. Fakhrizadeh, 62, was killed in an ambush near the capital of Tehran in a move that is guaranteed to further increase tensions between Iran and the West. Speaking on state television, Mr. Rouhani said: “Our people are wiser than falling into the trap of the Zionist regime in Israel.
“Iran will surely respond to the martyrdom of our scientist at the right time.”
Fakhrizadeh is believed to be the mastermind behind Iran’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
His death could spark a showdown between Iran and its enemies in the final weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Israel is understood to have put its embassies around the world on alert, although a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the ministry did not comment on security issues regarding its representatives abroad.
Furthermore, it is likely to complicate any effort by President-elect Joe Biden to readjust US policy toward Iran in line with that of former President Barack Obama.
Neither the White House, the Pentagon, the US State Department, nor the CIA have commented, and Biden’s transition team is also keeping quiet on the issue.
At least four scientists were killed between 2010 and 2012 in what Tehran claimed was a series of killings intended to sabotage its nuclear power program.
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One of Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards was wounded four times, and Fakhrizadeh himself was transported by helicopter to a hospital in the town of Absard in Damavand county 44 miles (70 km) east of Tehran, where he died.
Speaking to state television, a witness claimed that there were repeated shots and that Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards clashed with the killers.
Physicist Fakhrizadeh was an officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a professor at Imam Hussein University in Tehran, as well as one of the Mossad’s main targets, according to the New York Times.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned him by name in April 2018 during a presentation on Iran’s nuclear program held days before Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 JPOCA agreement aimed at preventing Tehran from developing. nuclear weapons, citing repeated violations.
At the time, Netanyahu said, “Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh.”
There is some speculation that Trump, defeated by Biden in this month’s presidential election, plans to target Iran in the final weeks of his term.
Earlier this month, he was apparently deterred from launching an airstrike on the country after advisers told him that he risked sparking a broader conflict in the Middle East.
In January, he ordered a drone strike in Baghdad that killed Iraninan military commander. Qassem Soleimani.
Iran responded by firing missiles at a US base in Iraq, the closest the two enemies of war have come in decades.
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