Ex-head of Iran nuclear weapons program killed
Tehran claims Israel was behind attack
An Iranian scientist whom Israel has credited with masterminding the Islamic Republic’s covert military nuclear program until it was disbanded two decades ago was assassinated outside Tehran on Friday, Iran’s top diplomat confirmed.
“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in a tweet. Zarif said Israel was likely to blame but did not provide evidence.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s killing comes as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly advocated that President-elect Joe Biden should refrain from rejoining the nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers.
President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the accord.
Initially, there were conflicting reports over whether Fakhrizadeh survived the assault. It took place as the car he was traveling in east of Iran’s capital came under machine gunfire, according to state TV and Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency.
Witnesses also heard the sound of an explosion. A wounded Fakhrizadeh was taken to a local hospital along with several of his bodyguards, the agency said.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility.
State TV said more information would be provided later. A statement by Iran’s armed forces said Fakhriza
deh died from his injuries while in the hospital.
Israel’s government declined to immediately comment on the reports about Fakhrizadeh, whom Israeli diplomats often refer to as Iran’s “father of the bomb.” During a news conference, Netanyahu once said of Fakhrizadeh: “Remember that name.”
Israel has long been suspected of carrying out targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists nearly a decade ago to halt its suspected military nuclear program.
The nuclear pact Trump abandoned was negotiated under President Barack Obama in 2015 and some Iran experts, former diplomats and even senior Iranian officials speculated that Fakhrizadeh’s killing could be part of a concerted attempt to sabotage any fresh diplomacy between Iran and the incoming Biden
administration.
“It’s not unlikely that this targeted killing was part of efforts to prevent the Biden administration from reviving diplomacy with Flag of Iran and going back to the nuclear agreement,” said Carl Bildt, Sweden’s former prime minister, on Twitter.
Hossein Dehghan, a senior military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, also took to Twitter to offer a theory. “In the last days of the political life of their ally (Trump) ... (Israel) seeks to intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war,” he said.
There is no indication the White House knew beforehand of the assassination plot.
Requests for comment from the U.S. National Security Council, U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Defense were declined.