Iran's top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh assassinated, state media reports
TEHRAN, Iran: Iran's top nuclear scientist was killed Friday in an alleged assassination that the country's foreign minister linked to Israel.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed while his car was traveling east of Tehran.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, considered one of the masterminds of Iran's controversial nuclear program, died after his car was apparently ambushed in a district east of Tehran. Photos from the scene showed the shattered windshield of a car, and blood on the road.
Iranian state media confirmed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated on Friday (Nov 27) in an attack on his car outside Tehran and accused arch foe Israel of being behind it.
The scientist was "seriously wounded" when assailants targeted his car before being engaged in a gunfight with his security team, Iran's defence ministry said in a statement.
It added that Fakhrizadeh, who headed the ministry's research and innovation organisation, was later "martyred" after medics failed to revive him.
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.
A state television report on the assassination described him as one "of our country's nuclear scientists" and said that Israel "had an old and deep enmity towards him".
Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami was quoted by Iran's semi-official news agency ISNA as saying Fakhrizadeh was targeted by gunfire and a Nissan vehicle explosion, before a firefight ensued.
Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif called the death "cowardice -- with serious indications of Israeli role."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office declined to comment to CNN.
Fakhrizadeh was head of the research center of new technology in the elite Revolutionary Guards, and was a leading figure in Iran's nuclear program for many years.
"Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today," Zarif said in a tweet. "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."
US President Donald Trump retweeted prominent Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, who wrote: "Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi assassinated in Damavand, east of Tehran according to reports in Iran. He was head of Iran's secret military program and wanted for many years by Mossad. His death is a major psychological and professional blow for Iran."
The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri warned of "severe revenge" against "the killers" of Fakhrizadeh, state-news agency IRNA reported.
"The assassination of this capable and worthy manager, although it was a bitter and heavy blow to the country's defense complex, but the enemies know that the path started by the martyr Fakhrizadeh will never be stopped," Bagheri said, according to IRNA.
The Trump administration said it was closely monitoring the apparent assassination. The death "would be a big deal," a US official told CNN.
Trita Parsi, the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said it was not clear who was behind the apparent assassination, but that "there are not that many candidates."
In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Fakhrizadeh sits in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, in January 2019.
In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Fakhrizadeh sits in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, in January 2019.
"At the end of the day the only countries that actually have the intent, the motivation and the capacity -- and the capacity is really important -- really reduces the number of candidates to no more than Israel and potentially the United States," he told CNN's Becky Anderson.
In April 2018, Netanyahu mentioned Fakhrizadeh by name when he unveiled a nuclear archive he said Mossad agents had taken from Tehran. He called him the head of a secret nuclear project called Project Amad. "Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh," Netanyahu told reporters.
Iran began to withdraw from its commitments to the 2015 landmark nuclear deal in 2019, a year after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement and unleashed crippling sanctions on the country.
In the last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency documented several new breaches of the agreement. Earlier this week, Iran said it had begun injecting Uranium Hexafluoride gas into centrifuges at its Natanz facility.
Why was Fakhrizadeh targeted?
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed while his car was traveling east of Tehran.
Fakhrizadeh is the most prominent face of nuclear program that has been the main flashpoint in an international dispute. He is mentioned in multiple reports by the US State Department and the International Atomic Energy Agency as holding deep insight into Iran's nuclear capabilities.
It's unclear what role he held in Iran's efforts -- always officially denied -- to develop a nuclear weapon. It is also not clear how much he would know of the most secret elements of anything Iran may be doing, given his profile. But he was a symbol of Iran's past ambitions, and was protected heavily.
That did did not stop him being targeted and killed in broad daylight in the outskirts of Iran's capital. The message is clear: Iran's enemies can kill its nuclear celebrities anywhere.
Is the timing significant?
There are just over 50 days left in the Trump administration, before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated and diplomatic contacts between Tehran and Washington are likely to pick up again.
There are many in Israel and the US who see the current "maximum pressure" policy of sanctions and hostility as the only route to stop Iran from expanding its influence and getting the bomb eventually.
Fakhrizadeh's killing makes that kind of diplomacy harder, and gives voice to hawks in Iran that peacemaking is futile. It also gives voice to Iran's enemies, who can argue that taking on Iran head first is possible and can be palpably a deterrent.
While the apparent assassination is embarrassing to Iran, it wants diplomacy with Biden rather than outright conflict.
Beyond condemnation, Iran has yet to respond to the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani earlier this year.
Biden has promised a return to diplomacy with Iran after four hawkish years under incumbent US President Donald Trump, who withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and began reimposing crippling sanctions.
SERIES OF ASSASSINATIONS
Trump said at the time that the deal known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) did not offer sufficient guarantees to stop Tehran from acquiring an atomic bomb.
Iran has always denied it wants such a weapon.
Trump on Friday retweeted reports on Fakhrizadeh's assassination, without commenting on it himself.
The killing comes a day after Thailand said it had returned three Iranians jailed over a botched 2012 bomb plot in Bangkok that Israel had linked to a spate of attacks on its diplomats around the world.
Iran said the three were "a businessman and two" other Iranians detained abroad on the basis of "false accusations," without giving further information.
The killing of Fakhrizadeh is the latest in a series of assassinations of nuclear scientists in Iran in recent years that the Islamic republic has blamed Israel of carrying out.
The New York Times reported earlier in November that Al-Qaeda's second-in-command was secretly shot and killed in Tehran by two Israeli operatives on a motorcycle at Washington's behest.
The senior leader, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was killed in August along with his daughter, Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden's son Hamza, the Times said, citing intelligence sources.
Iran said the report was based on "made-up information" and reaffirmed its denial of the presence of any of the group's members in the Islamic republic.
Iran's state news IRNA and Mehr news agency at the time reported a similar incident and identified the victims as Habib Dawoud, a 58-year-old Lebanese history teacher, and his daughter Maryam, 27, without giving further details.
Source: AFP/CNN
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| Mohsen Fakhrizadeh |
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed while his car was traveling east of Tehran.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, considered one of the masterminds of Iran's controversial nuclear program, died after his car was apparently ambushed in a district east of Tehran. Photos from the scene showed the shattered windshield of a car, and blood on the road.
Iranian state media confirmed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated on Friday (Nov 27) in an attack on his car outside Tehran and accused arch foe Israel of being behind it.
The scientist was "seriously wounded" when assailants targeted his car before being engaged in a gunfight with his security team, Iran's defence ministry said in a statement.
It added that Fakhrizadeh, who headed the ministry's research and innovation organisation, was later "martyred" after medics failed to revive him.
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.
A state television report on the assassination described him as one "of our country's nuclear scientists" and said that Israel "had an old and deep enmity towards him".
Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami was quoted by Iran's semi-official news agency ISNA as saying Fakhrizadeh was targeted by gunfire and a Nissan vehicle explosion, before a firefight ensued.
Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif called the death "cowardice -- with serious indications of Israeli role."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office declined to comment to CNN.
Fakhrizadeh was head of the research center of new technology in the elite Revolutionary Guards, and was a leading figure in Iran's nuclear program for many years.
"Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today," Zarif said in a tweet. "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."
US President Donald Trump retweeted prominent Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, who wrote: "Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi assassinated in Damavand, east of Tehran according to reports in Iran. He was head of Iran's secret military program and wanted for many years by Mossad. His death is a major psychological and professional blow for Iran."
The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri warned of "severe revenge" against "the killers" of Fakhrizadeh, state-news agency IRNA reported.
"The assassination of this capable and worthy manager, although it was a bitter and heavy blow to the country's defense complex, but the enemies know that the path started by the martyr Fakhrizadeh will never be stopped," Bagheri said, according to IRNA.
The Trump administration said it was closely monitoring the apparent assassination. The death "would be a big deal," a US official told CNN.
Trita Parsi, the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said it was not clear who was behind the apparent assassination, but that "there are not that many candidates."
In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Fakhrizadeh sits in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, in January 2019.
In this picture released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Fakhrizadeh sits in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, in January 2019.
"At the end of the day the only countries that actually have the intent, the motivation and the capacity -- and the capacity is really important -- really reduces the number of candidates to no more than Israel and potentially the United States," he told CNN's Becky Anderson.
In April 2018, Netanyahu mentioned Fakhrizadeh by name when he unveiled a nuclear archive he said Mossad agents had taken from Tehran. He called him the head of a secret nuclear project called Project Amad. "Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh," Netanyahu told reporters.
Iran began to withdraw from its commitments to the 2015 landmark nuclear deal in 2019, a year after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement and unleashed crippling sanctions on the country.
In the last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency documented several new breaches of the agreement. Earlier this week, Iran said it had begun injecting Uranium Hexafluoride gas into centrifuges at its Natanz facility.
Why was Fakhrizadeh targeted?
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed while his car was traveling east of Tehran.
Fakhrizadeh is the most prominent face of nuclear program that has been the main flashpoint in an international dispute. He is mentioned in multiple reports by the US State Department and the International Atomic Energy Agency as holding deep insight into Iran's nuclear capabilities.
It's unclear what role he held in Iran's efforts -- always officially denied -- to develop a nuclear weapon. It is also not clear how much he would know of the most secret elements of anything Iran may be doing, given his profile. But he was a symbol of Iran's past ambitions, and was protected heavily.
That did did not stop him being targeted and killed in broad daylight in the outskirts of Iran's capital. The message is clear: Iran's enemies can kill its nuclear celebrities anywhere.
Is the timing significant?
There are just over 50 days left in the Trump administration, before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated and diplomatic contacts between Tehran and Washington are likely to pick up again.
There are many in Israel and the US who see the current "maximum pressure" policy of sanctions and hostility as the only route to stop Iran from expanding its influence and getting the bomb eventually.
Fakhrizadeh's killing makes that kind of diplomacy harder, and gives voice to hawks in Iran that peacemaking is futile. It also gives voice to Iran's enemies, who can argue that taking on Iran head first is possible and can be palpably a deterrent.
While the apparent assassination is embarrassing to Iran, it wants diplomacy with Biden rather than outright conflict.
Beyond condemnation, Iran has yet to respond to the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani earlier this year.
Biden has promised a return to diplomacy with Iran after four hawkish years under incumbent US President Donald Trump, who withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and began reimposing crippling sanctions.
SERIES OF ASSASSINATIONS
Trump said at the time that the deal known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) did not offer sufficient guarantees to stop Tehran from acquiring an atomic bomb.
Iran has always denied it wants such a weapon.
Trump on Friday retweeted reports on Fakhrizadeh's assassination, without commenting on it himself.
The killing comes a day after Thailand said it had returned three Iranians jailed over a botched 2012 bomb plot in Bangkok that Israel had linked to a spate of attacks on its diplomats around the world.
Iran said the three were "a businessman and two" other Iranians detained abroad on the basis of "false accusations," without giving further information.
The killing of Fakhrizadeh is the latest in a series of assassinations of nuclear scientists in Iran in recent years that the Islamic republic has blamed Israel of carrying out.
The New York Times reported earlier in November that Al-Qaeda's second-in-command was secretly shot and killed in Tehran by two Israeli operatives on a motorcycle at Washington's behest.
The senior leader, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was killed in August along with his daughter, Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden's son Hamza, the Times said, citing intelligence sources.
Iran said the report was based on "made-up information" and reaffirmed its denial of the presence of any of the group's members in the Islamic republic.
Iran's state news IRNA and Mehr news agency at the time reported a similar incident and identified the victims as Habib Dawoud, a 58-year-old Lebanese history teacher, and his daughter Maryam, 27, without giving further details.
Source: AFP/CNN
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