Tehran accuses Israel of assassinated Iranian nuclear physicist

A high-ranking nuclear scientist was killed in an attack in Iran. It is said to have played a key role in the nuclear program. According to the Iranian leadership, the responsibility for the death of the physicist lies with Israel.

A high-ranking Iranian nuclear physicist was murdered in Iran. “We hereby announce the martyrdom of Dr. Mohsen Fachrisadeh,” Tehran’s Ministry of Defense told state television. At the same time, several Iranian authorities accused Israel of the murder.

According to the Ministry of Defense, Fachrisadeh was “hit by terrorists” in his car and seriously injured. He later succumbed to injuries sustained in the hospital. Local authorities confirmed the death of the physicist and some of the attackers. 63-year-old Fachrisadeh was an expert in missile manufacturing and a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Most recently, Fachrisadeh headed the Department of Defense Research and Technology Renewal.

The Iranian leadership blames Israel

Hossein Deghan, adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has directly accused Israel and threatened those responsible with retaliation. “In the final days of their gambling ally’s political life, the Zionists are trying to intensify and increase pressure on Iran to wage an all-out war,” he tweeted, ostensibly referring to US President Donald Trump. . “We will descend like lightning on the murderers of this suppressed martyr and make them regret their actions.”

For the Iranian Foreign Minister and head of the Atomic Energy Agency, Javad Zarif, there are also signs from Israel. On Twitter, he wrote that the cowardly act – with serious indications of Israeli involvement – showed the perpetrators’ bitter bellicose intentions. He called on the international community, especially the EU, to condemn this “act of terrorism”.

The physicist is said to have been the head of the nuclear program

“The assassination of nuclear scientists is the most violent course to keep us from reaching modern science,” Hossein Salami, commander of the influential Iranian Revolutionary Guard, wrote on Twitter. As reported by the Fars news agency, the Israeli secret services have been trying to eliminate him for years. The background should be Fachrisadeh’s role in Iran’s Amad (Hope) nuclear program, which he is said to have directed in the early 2000s.

Israel and the West had claimed that the program was a military project investigating the possibility of building a nuclear weapon in Iran. Tehran has long insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Israel initially refused to comment on Fachrisadeh’s killing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once mentioned the physicist at a press conference and said, “Take note of this name.”