Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the brain of the nuclear program, was killed by a satellite machine gun (Iranian press) – International

A senior Iranian security official said Monday that the scientist who set up the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program was killed using remote-controlled “electronic devices,” the AP news agency wrote.

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the National Security Council, made the remarks at Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s funeral.

Israel, long suspected of being behind a program to assassinate Iranian military researchers, declined to comment after the attack.

Fakhrizadeh led Iran’s AMAD program, which Israel and several Western countries say is a military program aimed at obtaining an atomic weapon.

Shamkhani’s statements drastically change the initial version of Fakhrizadeh’s assassination on Friday. Authorities later claimed that a truck exploded and gunmen opened fire on the investigator and killed him. State television even aired an interview on the night of the attack in which a man claims to have seen gunmen open fire. Initial reports from Iranian news agencies even claimed that the scientist’s guards would shoot the attackers.

English-language state television Press TV reported that a weapon recovered from the scene of the attack bears “the logo and specifications of the Israeli military industry.” Arabic-language state television Al-Alam reported that the weapons used were “satellite controlled,” a statement released Sunday by the semi-official Fars news agency. None of these media outlets presented evidence to support the allegations.

“Unfortunately, the operation was very complicated and was performed using electronic devices,” said Shamkhani. “No one was present” at the scene of the attack.

Satellite controlled weaponry is nothing new. Long-range armed drones rely on satellite connections to be remotely controlled by their pilots. There is also a remotely controlled larger caliber weapon, but usually the operator is connected via a physical connection to reduce delays in sending commands.

While technically feasible, it’s unclear whether such a system was ever used, says Jeremy Binnie, editor of Jane’s Defense Weekly for the Middle East.

“Is it possible to configure a weapon with a camera equipped with a stream (of information) that uses satellite communication with the operator? I don’t see why that’s not possible, “says Binnie.

The question also arises as to whether the truck that exploded during the attack was detonated to destroy a satellite-controlled machine gun that was hidden inside. It would also take people on the ground to install the weapon.

“Soleimani of science”

Not much is known about the researcher killed, but one thing is certain: it was important, AFP notes.

Enough to meet with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in January 2019, official photos released after his death show.

So important to have an armored car, to benefit from an armed escort and for the chief of staff of the armed forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, to promise a “terrible revenge”.

After his death, Defense Minister Amir Hatami introduced him as Deputy Minister and Head of Defense Research and Innovation Division (Sepand, in Persian).

The American press has called it “the number 1 target of the Mossad”, the Israeli intelligence agency, and “the brain of the Iranian nuclear program”.

“I knew that he was in danger of being assassinated several times and that he survived,” said General Hatami.

Before Netanyahu claimed that Fakhrizadeh was the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh appeared in a December 2015 document in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

According to the UN agency, he conducted “activities in support of a possible military dimension” of the Iranian nuclear program launched “in the late 1980s” since the early 2000s before grouping them under his leadership in a project called AMAD, until their abandonment “at the end of 2003”.

In March 2007, Fakhrizadeh was targeted by UN Security Council sanctions.

According to Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA), Fakhrizadeh holds a doctorate in nuclear physics and engineering and worked on his dissertation with Fereydoun Abbassi Davani, the former head of the IAEA. same target of an assassination attempt. In 2010.

Evoking for the state press the memory of a “dear friend” and of a “close professional collaboration of 34 years”, the latter claimed to have fought alongside Fakhrizadeh during the war between Iraq and Iran (1980-1988) .

He has “worked in all sectors that support the country’s nuclear activities”, in particular in the “enrichment of uranium”, continued Abbassi Davani, was “a competent executive and a prestigious scientist and can be elevated to the same degree as the martyr Soleimani (General Qassem Soleimani removed from Washington in January) in science and technology “.