Iran’s top nuclear scientist, long known as a guide behind covert attempts to design a nuclear weapon by American and Israeli spies, was shot dead on Friday as Iranian media traveled outside Tehran. Was called a surprise attack.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a scientist, has been the driving force for two decades behind what US and Israeli officials have described as Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program. According to American intelligence assessments and Iranian nuclear documents stolen by Israel three years ago, their work continued after Iran’s pressure to develop a bomb was formally dispelled in 2003.
An American official, as well as two other intelligence officials, said Israel was behind the attack on the scientist. It is not clear how much the United States may know about the operation in advance, but the two nations are closest allies and have long shared intelligence about Iran, which Israel considers its strongest threat.
Iranian officials, who have always said their nuclear ambitions are for peaceful purposes, not weapons, have expressed outrage and vowed revenge for the killings, calling it an act of terrorism and targeting Israeli assassins and the United States. Quickly blamed.
White House, CIA and Israeli officials declined to comment. But the assassination of Mr. Fakhrizadeh – just 10 months after the United States killed a powerful spy master at the head of Iran’s security machinery in a drone strike in Iraq – led by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s plans to reactivate 2015 could be very complicated. A nuclear deal between Tehran and six other countries that cut off Iran’s nuclear activities.
Mr Biden’s transition team did not immediately comment on the killings.
President Trump withdrew the United States from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2018, signaling the achievement of his predecessor Barack Obama’s foreign policy achievement and separating the United States from Western allies trying to keep the agreement intact. Since then, Iran has once again begun to increase its nuclear capabilities, arguing that it is not bound by the nuclear deal because the United States is sticking to its commitments.
The assassination of Mr. Fakhrizadeh was characterized by precise timing operations. Iranian state media said gunmen were waiting for the road and were passing through the city of Absard, an area known as the Bucolic Escape, with majestic mountains about 40 miles east of Tehran.
Pictures posted by the state and social media after the attack showed the scientist’s vehicle, a black SUV, with its windshield shattered by bullets and side windows blown. Stains of blood and glass and metal shards were scattered on the road.
Protests erupted outside government buildings in Tehran, demanding the release of as many protesters as possible. Iranian Major General Qasim Suleimani, who runs a select Kuds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was assassinated.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that “terrorists killed a prominent Iranian scientist today.” Twitter. “This cowardice – with serious indications of Israel’s role – shows the perpetrators fighting desperately.”
Mr Zarif, who has negotiated the Iran nuclear deal and is becoming Iran’s most recognized figure, said in the post that the international community should “end their shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terrorism.”
Brig. “We will not rest until we look at those responsible for the killing of Martyr Fakhrizadeh and take revenge,” said General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.
On Friday night, Iran sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemning what he called a “terrorist attack” and warning that the country had every right to take all necessary steps to protect its people and protect its interests. .
It is difficult to predict the exact outcome from the murder. A weakened Iran, which has lost two of its most famous military and nuclear figures in the past year alone, may be eager for new talks with the Biden administration.
Yet the two murders may have poisoned the well. Hardliners in Iran can win the argument that they cannot turn to outside pressure and will redouble their efforts to resist the West in memory of Mr. Fakhrizadeh, who declared them martyrs.
John Brennan, the former director of the CIA under Mr. Obama, says murder Tweet “Criminal act and very reckless”. “It risks deadly revenge and a new round of regional conflict.” He urged Iran to “wait for the return of the responsible American leadership” and resist the temptation to strike back.
A former Pentagon Middle East policy official, Michael P. Mulroy said Mr Fakhrizadeh’s death was “a shock to Iran’s nuclear program.” He noted that the scientist “was also a senior official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and that it would increase Iran’s willingness to respond by force.”
It is unclear whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of the most vocal Iranians in the administration, was warned in advance of Israel’s plans when he visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week.
But some U.S. officials have argued that Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s death, one year after the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, extends a chilling message to other top scientists working on the program: “A well-protected head cannot be protected, or So no one else.
It was also not clear how much the assassination would backfire on the Iranian program. Mr. Fakhrizadeh had the background and oversight to understand the challenges of physics and politics faced by the Iran nuclear program.
But since the assassination of lower-level Iranian scientists and at the nuclear fuel production site at Nutanz from 2007 to 2010, a joint Israeli-American operation code called the “Olympic Olympic Games.” That operation pushed Iran back for a year.
Mr Fakhrizadeh’s assassination comes just two weeks after intelligence officials confirmed that Israeli assassins had shot dead another al Qaeda leader on the streets of Tehran on August 7 at the behest of the United States.
The man of the law, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, was approached by Nompt de Gare Abu Muhammad al-Masri and accused of being the mastermind of the 1998 deadly attack on two US embassies in East Africa. Along with Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin Laden’s widow Miriam, his daughter Miriam was also killed.
But the officers of the law were foreigners; Mr. Fakhrizadeh was a national hero, a figure of resistance to the West, and his insistence that Iran not have its own nuclear technology.
Iran has never agreed to the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitor, and will allow UN observers to question Mr. Fakhrizadeh, saying he is an academic at Imam Hussein University in Tehran.
Mr. Fakhrizadeh was an academic, but a series of classified reports, notably George W. Bush by the CIA. A lengthy 2007 assessment for the Bush administration stated that the academic role is a cover story. In 2008, his name was added to the list of Iranian officials whose assets had been ordered to be frozen by the United States.
That same year, its activities were revealed in an unclassified briefing by the IAEA’s chief inspector. Later, it became clear that the Iranians carried out what they call projects 110 and 111 – trying to make the bomb designers a small head that could fit over a missile and try to cope with the most difficult problems to avoid the rigors of re-entry. Atmosphere.
He remained out of sight for years. But in early 2018, an Israeli operation in which a warehouse full of Iranian documents about “Project Amad” was stolen, which Iranians identified 20 years ago as a nuclear weapons effort, included documents about Mr. Fakhrizadeh, and at least Israeli .
Shortly afterwards, Mr. Netanyahu sang a song to Mr. Fakhrizadeh in a television presentation, while describing the secret Israeli operation to seize the archive. He accused Iran of lying about the purpose of its nuclear research and identified Mr. Fakhrizadeh as the leader of the Amad program.
Iran said Mr Netanyahu’s presentation was fictional.
Israeli officials, backed by U.S. intelligence officials who later reviewed the archives, said the scientist kept the elements of the program alive even after they were apparently abandoned. It is now being run in secret, Mr Netanyahu argued, adding that an Iranian defense ministry organization known as SPND added: Dr .. led by Fakhrizadeh. ”
The killings come amid heightened tensions between Iran and the Trump administration. Mr Trump was dissatisfied with the attack on Iran just two weeks ago, after his aides warned he could escalate into a wider conflict during his last week in office.
Mr. Trump asked senior advisers at a meeting of the Oval Office on Nov. 12 whether he had the options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site at Natanz next week. Days later, Mr. Pompeo visited Israel to see if there might be his last trip in Inn.
Such a strike on the eve of the new administration could poison relations with Tehran to such an extent that it would be impossible to renegotiate the nuclear deal or tighten its terms.
Mr. Trump met earlier this month with Secretary of Defense, Mark T. Following the dismissal of Asper and other Pentagon aides, the Department of Defense and other national security officials have privately expressed concern that the president could initiate action against Iran or others, either covertly or secretly. Opponents at the end of his term. Others have said that Mr. Netanyahu, who was on the verge of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities at various moments, may try to take action while Mr. Trump is still in office.
Mr. Trump’s top advisers – Mr. Pompeo and Gen. Mark A. While the president, including Miley, has argued against a military strike against Iran, top US officials and commanders are still warning what they call Iran’s mischievous activities. .
In Iran, some officials and critics have acknowledged that Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s loss has created a significant rift in the country’s pursuit of nuclear science, but he vowed that it would not be stopped. Others also expressed concern about how apparently it was a rotating security hole to say that Israeli activists had infiltrated Iran.
“Israel has camped badly here. Recent events this year make this clear, “said former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi. Twitter. “Iran’s security strategy should be to find Mossad spies and informants.”
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