The Iranian defense ministry on Friday confirmed the assassination of one of the country’s leading scientists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was widely known as the mastermind behind Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Fakhrizadeh was reportedly shot and killed while driving through the countryside town of Absard, which lies in the Damavand region in the north. He was gravely wounded in the ambush and was rushed to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. State media released photographs from the scene which showed a car with its windshield blown in, and the road covered in glass and blood.
Though there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, Iranian authorities have blamed Israel, with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif taking to Twitter to claim that there were “serious indications” that Israel was involved.
Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) November 27, 2020
Iran calls on int'l community—and especially EU—to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror.
Meanwhile, Hossein Dehgan, the military advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed retaliation. “In the last days of the political life of their ... ally (Trump), the Zionists seek to intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war,” he tweeted, adding, “We will strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr and will make them regret their action.” It is worth noting that Gen. Dehghan has previously warned, “Israel knows that Iran will erase its entity and uproot it from existence in case of a war.”
Israel has long been suspected of carrying out a series of targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists nearly a decade ago. Fakhrizadeh was thought to be a prime target of the Mossad, given his leadership of the country’s ‘Amad’ or ‘Hope’ program, aimed to look at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon in Iran. Tehran has maintained that its nuclear ambitions are peaceful. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even called him out publicly for supporting “special projects” with Iran’s defense ministry, saying: “Remember that name”.
Fakhrizadeh’s death is expected to escalate tensions between Iran and the United States, which have soared under the Trump administration following Washington’s exit from the landmark Iran nuclear agreement.
The New York Times has reported intelligence officials confirming Israel’s involvement in the attack, and given the US and Israel’s intelligence-sharing history, it is unclear how much Washington may have known about the operation in advance. However, neither the Israeli government nor the White House has commented on the matter.