Iran’s top nuclear scientist assassinated

Iran’s highest-ranking nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed near the capital Tehran, the country’s Defense Ministry confirmed.

Fakhrizadeh died in hospital after an attack in Absard, Damavand County.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned the killing “as an act of state terror.”

Western intelligence agencies believe Fakhrizadeh is behind Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.

“If Iran ever chose nuclear weapons (uranium enrichment), Fakhrizadeh is considered the father of the Iranian bomb,” a Western diplomat told the Reuters news agency in 2014.

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

But news of the assassination comes amid renewed concern about the country’s abundance of enriched uranium. Enriched uranium is a key ingredient for both civilian nuclear power generation and for the production of military nuclear weapons.

A 2015 agreement with six world powers has put limits on the country’s enriched uranium production, but since President Donald Trump abandoned the agreement in 2018, Iran has deliberately extended it. there.

Joe Biden vowed to re-cooperate with Iran when he took office as US president in January, despite long-standing Israeli opposition.

Between 2010 and 2012, four Iranian nuclear scientists were killed and Iran accused Israel of being an accessory to the killings.

Fakhrizadeh’s name was specifically mentioned in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation on Iran’s nuclear program in April 2018.

There is currently no comment from Israel on the news of the assassination. The Pentagon also declined to comment, according to Reuters.

In a statement on Friday, Iran’s Defense Ministry said: “Armed terrorists attacked a vehicle carrying Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of the ministry’s research and innovation organization.”

“After a confrontation between the terrorists and their bodyguards, Mr. Fakhrizadeh was seriously injured and was rushed to hospital.

“Unfortunately, the medical team’s attempt to save him was unsuccessful and he passed away a few minutes ago.”

Iranian media said the attackers opened fire on the scientist in his car.

The Fars news agency previously reported that there was a car explosion in the town of Absard. Witnesses said that “three to four people were killed, believed to be terrorists.”

Paul Adams, BBC Foreign Affairs Correspondent

As head of the research and innovation organization at the Irane Ministry of Defense, Fakhrizadeh clearly remains a key player. Therefore, two years ago, Benjamin Netanyahu warned, “remember this name.”

Since Iran began violating its commitments under the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, it has been quick to intervene, building reserves of low-enriched and highly-refined uranium. purity above that allowed by agreement.

Iranian officials have always said such moves are reversible, but advances in research and development are unlikely to unravel.

“We cannot back down,” former Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh said recently.

If Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was the main factor accused by Israel, then his death could represent someone’s attempt to stop the development of Iran.

With US President-elect Joe Biden speaking of Washington returning to the Iran deal, the assassination could also be intended to complicate any future negotiations.

“Terrorists have murdered a famous Iranian scientist today,” Iran’s foreign minister said in a tweet.

“This cowardice, with serious indications of Israel’s role, indicates the desperation of the culprit to make war.”

Mr. Zarif called on the international community to “condemn this act of state terror.”

The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said that Iran will take revenge for the murder of the scientist.

“The murder of nuclear scientists is a flagrant violation of world leadership to block our access to modern science,” said Major General Hossein Salami.

The former head of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States (CIA), John Brennan, said that the murder of the scientist was a “crime” and “very reckless” that could provoke conflicts in the region. “.

In a series of tweets, he said that the death of the scientist “runs the risk of provoking a deadly revenge and new conflicts in the field.”

Mr. Brennan added that he did not know “whether a foreign government would authorize or carry out the assassination of Fakhrizadeh.”

Fakhrizadeh is Iran’s most famous nuclear scientist and the top officer of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Western security sources have long considered it extremely powerful and an important part of Iran’s nuclear program.

According to confidential documents that Israel obtained in 2018, it leads a nuclear weapons program.

At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he identified Fakhrizedeh as the program’s lead scientist and urged people to “remember that name.”

In 2015, the New York Times compared him to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who ran the Manhattan Project, during World War II, which produced the first atomic weapons.

As a professor of physics, Fakhrizadeh is believed to have led Project Amad, a supposedly covert program founded in 1989 to study the potential for making a nuclear bomb. According to the IAEA, the program was closed in 2003, although Netanyahu said documents obtained in 2018 showed that Fakhrizadeh was running a secret program that was continuing the work of Project Amad.

The IAEA has long wanted to speak to Mr. Fakhrizadeh as part of the investigation into Iran’s nuclear program.

Suspicions that Iran is using the program as a cover to develop a nuclear bomb led the EU, the US and the UN to impose heavy sanctions in 2010.

The 2015 agreement that Iran reached with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany shows that the country limits its nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of sanctions.

Since President Trump resigned from the deal, he has been in danger of failing. Earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran had 12 times the amount of enriched uranium allowed under the agreement.

Meanwhile, tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated, culminating in January when the United States assassinated General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.