He was the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2015 “final assessment” of open questions about Iran’s nuclear programme.
Tehran: Iran’s one of most prominent nuclear scientists Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated on Friday in an attack on his car outside Tehran.
The scientist was “seriously wounded” when assaulters targeted his car before being held in a gunfight with his security team, Iran’s defense ministry said in a statement.
Scientist Fakhrizadeh, who headed the ministry’s research and innovation organization, was later “martyred” after medics failed to revive him.
The military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to strike against the killers of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who died of injuries in hospital after armed assassins fired on his car, state media reported.
“We will strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr and will make them regret their action,” tweeted Hossein Dehghan, also a military commander.
He was the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2015 “final assessment” of open questions about Iran’s nuclear programme.
Fakhrizadeh, once described by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, had been travelling in a car near Absard city in Tehran province’s eastern Damavand county.
Iran’s state TV report on the assassination called him as one “of our country’s nuclear scientists” and said that Israel “had an old and deep enmity towards him”.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister said there were “serious indications of an Israeli role” in the scientist’s assassination.
Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter…
Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators Iran calls on int’l community—and especially EU—to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.
Trump, who lost his re-election bid on Nov. 3 and leaves office on Jan. 20, has repeatedly accused Iran of secretly seeking nuclear weapons.
Fakhrizadeh’s assassination comes less than two months before Joe Biden is to take office as US president. Earlier Biden has promised a return to diplomacy with Iran after US President Donald Trump, who withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and began reimposing crippling sanctions. A US official confirmed earlier this month that Trump had sought from military aides a plan for a possible strike on Iran but had decided against it at that time.
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