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Iran will avenge the death of a nuclear scientist killed “like lightning,” said an adviser to the country’s supreme leader.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was injured after gunmen shot her car and later died in hospital, Iranian state media reported.
Hossein Dehghan, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader and a candidate in the country’s elections next year, issued a warning to the perpetrators and appeared to add his voice to claims that Israel carried out the attack.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif suggested Israel was behind the attack
“In the final days of their ally’s political life in the game, the Zionists seek to intensify and increase pressure on Iran to wage a full-blown war,” wrote Dehghan, who appears to refer to US President Donald Trump.
“We will descend like lightning on the murderers of this oppressed martyr and make them repent of their actions!”
Trump has been a vocal critic of the Iranian nuclear project during his presidency, and has been viewed as an ally of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel has long alleged that Fakhrizadeh had directed a military nuclear program in the early 2000s, but the country declined to comment following Friday’s news.
The country’s mission to the United Nations described Fakhrizadeh’s work, saying he was overseeing efforts to produce a coronavirus vaccine and “the development of the first indigenous COVID-19 test kit.”
The attack occurred in Absard, a small town east of the capital Tehran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency, which is believed to be close to the Revolutionary Guard.
Mr. Fakhrizadeh was reportedly in a car when several gunmen shot him
State television said that a truck with explosives hidden under a pile of wood exploded near a car carrying Mr. Fakhrizadeh.
When the car stopped, at least five armed men got out and fired at the vehicle, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said.
Images and videos circulating online showed a Nissan saloon with bullet holes in the windshield and bloodstains on the road.
A view shows the site of the attack that killed the Iranian scientist
Those injured in the attack, including the nuclear scientist’s bodyguards, were later taken to a local hospital, Tasnim said.
While no group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, Iranian media has noted the interest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously shown in the nuclear scientist.
Netanyahu called him at a press conference in 2018 and said, “Remember that name,” referring to Fakhrizadeh.
