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An assassination attempt on a prominent Iranian nuclear physicist could provoke an escalation of tensions in the Middle East region.
The father of the Iranian nuclear program, scientist Mohsen Fakhrizade Mahabadi, was killed near Tehran. Unidentified militants fired at his cortege from an ambush. The murder of a well-known nuclear physicist could cause an escalation in the already troubled Middle East region.
The Tehran official blamed Israel for the attack. The respectable New York Times agreed with him, citing a similar opinion from unidentified US intelligence officials. Correspondent.net says the details.
Iran promises a strong response
Two years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly displayed a photograph of an elderly man with glasses: “Remember this name: Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.”
On the day of the scientist’s death, Netanyahu, speaking about the “to-do list” he made this week, added significantly: “This is an incomplete list, now I can’t tell you everything.”
His words could be understood differently than indirect confirmation of his involvement in the attack, were it not for the long history of attacks on Iranian scientists.
In a museum near Tehran, there is a monument to dead nuclear physicists: bullet-riddled cars, in which four specialists were killed in 2010-2012.
But those events pale in comparison to the 2020 attacks: Iran was shocked in the summer after a series of explosions destroyed some nuclear research and production facilities.
On November 30, hundreds of people gathered in Tehran for the funeral of nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who ran a research center under the Iranian Defense Ministry. The attempt on the life of the specialist was committed on November 27.
Fakhrizada, who got out of his car, was exposed to fire from a Nissan car, which was about 150 meters away. The shots were fired remotely from automatic small arms. Then Nissan exploded. The scientist was taken to hospital with injuries, but doctors were unable to save him.
Photos from the Fakhrizade murder scene. 18+:
In Iran, they say that Fakhrizadeh’s assassination was carried out using electronic equipment without the perpetrators present on the scene.
The weapon is likely Israeli in origin, Press TV reported, citing one source. The fragments allegedly bear the logo and specifications of the Israeli military industry.
Furthermore, according to Press TV, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry has received new information about the identity of the attackers. The ministry stressed that this information will be made public soon.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani said this time the assassination organizers chose “an absolutely new way” to prepare for the assassination attempt, and the special services did not pay due attention to the scientist’s safety. .
Immediately after the incident, the authorities of the Islamic Republic accused Israel of being involved in the attack. Netanyahu’s office later declined to comment.
“The enemy knows very well, and as a military man I tell him about this, that not a single crime, not a single murder, not a single stupid act against the Iranian people will go unanswered,” said Iranian Defense Minister Amir Khatami, on November 30 during the ceremony. Fakhrizade’s farewell in Tehran.
Iran’s response to the assassination of a nuclear physicist will be “calculated and decisive,” said Kamal Kharrazi, senior assistant to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei and head of the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was Iran’s most famous nuclear physicist and a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to US intelligence, he ran a covert program to develop a nuclear warhead.
The Western press compared it to physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan project to create American nuclear weapons, and called it the main target of Israeli political intelligence Mossad.
The authoritative New York Times newspaper, citing US intelligence sources, writes that Israel may be behind Fakhrizade’s assassination.
The publication explains that it is not yet known how much information about the upcoming information might be available to the United States, but it points to close cooperation between the two states and a long-term intelligence exchange on Iran.
“Israeli officials, who were later backed up by US intelligence officials who studied the file, said the scientist withheld elements of the program even after [в Иране] supposedly it was abandoned, “writes the newspaper.
We are talking about an Iranian Amad classified project, which was developed in the early 2000s. Its goal was to develop and test a nuclear ballistic missile warhead. In Israel, as the NYT noted, Fakhrizade is believed to have led the project and conducted the research within its framework.
The White House and the CIA declined to comment on this information. However, President Donald Trump retweeted a post by Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, who said that the Mossad had been searching for Mohsen Fakhrizadeh for a long time.
Former Pentagon spokesman for Middle East policy Michael P. Mulroy told the publication that the scientist’s importance to Iran’s nuclear program could heighten Tehran’s desire to “respond strongly.”
Meanwhile, the NYT writes that there are currently no “unusual movements of Iranian troops or weapons.”
However, after Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, the Iranian parliament decided to speed up the adoption of a bill limiting inspections of nuclear facilities by the UN IAEA. It also contains plans to continue and expand the uranium enrichment program.
It is in this context, commentators note, that US President-elect Joe Biden will have to improve relations with Iran.
Biden is likely to seek to renew the 2015 agreement between Iran and six major states (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany) to curb nuclear programs in exchange for easing sanctions.
Israel has always opposed the deal and Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal two years ago.
Tehran soon refused to abide by the terms of the agreement, and in November this year the IAEA said Iran had accumulated 12 times more enriched uranium than the agreement allowed.
“The removal of Fakhrizade is not Israel’s message to Iran. It is an assassination attempt on a person and an opportunity to return to diplomacy,” tweeted Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who previously worked for the United States Department of State.
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In a letter, Iran’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, writes that Iran expects the Secretary-General and members of the Security Council to strongly condemn the incident and take “the necessary measures against its executors.”
However, so far the reaction of the international community cannot be described as decisive. Of the countries that participated in the nuclear deal, Germany was the most concerned about the incident.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned that the assassination of Mohsen Fahrizadeh “aggravates the situation in the region” and called on all parties to refrain from taking drastic measures “that will lead to a further escalation of the situation.” The murder of the scientist was also condemned in the government structures of the European Union.
But Iran is clearly waiting for a more decisive reaction, mainly from Russia and China.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted two tweets in Russian and Chinese, calling for the condemnation of “state terrorism.” However, Beijing and Moscow are still on hiatus.
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