THE WORLD TODAY

Iran blames Israel for death of scientist

IRAN’s foreign minister has blamed Israel for the “terrorist” murder of a nuclear scientist and urged the international community to condemn the killing. An Iranian scientist that Israel alleged led the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear programme until its disbanding in the early 2000s was killed in a shootout on Friday, Iran’s state television had said.

Tehran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif quickly suggested that Israel was behind the attack.

In a tweet Zarif said: “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.”

Israel declined to immediately comment on the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu once mentioned in a news conference saying: “Remember that name”.

Israel has long been suspected of carrying out a series of targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists nearly a decade ago.

The Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, said the attack happened in Absard, a small city just east of capital Tehran.

It said witnesses heard the sound of an explosion and then machine gun fire and the attack targeted a car Fakhrizadeh was in.

Fakhrizadeh led Iran’s so- called Amad, or Hope programme.

Israel and the West have alleged it was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon in Iran.

Tehran has maintained its nuclear programme is peaceful.