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An Iranian nuclear scientist described as the guru of Iran’s nuclear program was shot and killed on the street in a city near Tehran.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was ambushed in the city of Absard, 70 kilometers east of Tehran. Four assailants opened fire after witnesses heard an explosion. Efforts to resuscitate Fakhrizadeh failed and his bodyguard was also injured.
An adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised that the country would retaliate against the perpetrators. “We will strike like thunder at the murderers of this oppressed martyr and make them regret their action,” tweeted Hossein Dehghan, a military commander.
The Iranian defense ministry confirmed Fakhrizadeh’s death in a statement. “During the confrontation between his security team and the terrorists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was seriously injured and taken to hospital,” he said. “Unfortunately, the medical team failed to revive him, and a few minutes ago, this manager and scientist, after years of effort and struggle, achieved a high degree of martyrdom.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif immediately identified Israel as the possible culprit. “Terrorists assassinated an eminent Iranian scientist today,” he tweeted. “This cowardice, with serious indications of the role of Israel, shows a desperate warmongering of the perpetrators. Iran calls on the international community, and especially the EU, to put an end to their shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror.
Fakhrizadeh was identified by Israel’s prime minister in a 2018 public presentation as the director of Iran’s nuclear weapons project. “Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” Benjamin Netanyahu said during the presentation.
He accused Iran at the time of concealing and expanding its knowledge of nuclear weapons, saying that Israeli intelligence had obtained a stash of half a ton of nuclear archival materials from the country.
The attack was confirmed by Iranian state television, but was later denied by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) before being separately confirmed by the Defense Ministry. Images from the alleged scene of the attack also appeared on Iranian news sites. The security forces blocked the boulevard where the attack occurred.
An Israeli army spokesman said: “We do not comment on foreign media reports.” The prime minister’s office said it would not comment “on those reports.”
The confusion in the Iranian media reflected the high tensions within Iran, amid reports that Israeli intelligence and the secret service have been given the green light to organize strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities before Donald Trump resigns the presidency.
Many Iranian officials believe that Trump, along with Israel and Saudi Arabia, is determined to weaken or antagonize Iran before the US handover of power on January 20.
Hossein Dehghan, Khamenei’s top military adviser, said in reference to Trump: “In the final days of his gambling ally’s political life, the Zionists seek to intensify and increase the pressure on Iran to wage a full-blown war. The night is long. We will descend like lightning on the murderers of this oppressed martyr. “
US President-elect Joe Biden has said he is willing to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and lift some economic sanctions as long as Iran again complies with the deal, especially over its excessive stocks of enriched uranium. Israel and Saudi Arabia want the United States to stay out of the agreement and continue with a policy of maximum economic sanctions.
Fakhrizadeh, on a US sanctions list, was seen as the main guardian of Iranian knowledge of its nuclear program. Brigadier general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and professor of physics at Imam Hussein University of the Guard, he was shrouded in mystery.
As of April 2018, no photographs of him were publicly available, and after the assassinations of several other nuclear scientists, an additional shield of secrecy and security had been thrown at him, in an effort to protect him against Israeli killers.
He took over the Iranian Physics Research Center in 1988, and later became head of research for his successor, the Institute of Applied Physics, from where Iran’s secret nuclear research program was carried out.
He had never been interviewed by a member of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, IAEA, but was mentioned in one of their reports.
