Iran's top nuclear scientist killed in apparent assassination, state media reports
Posted: 27th November 2020
By Ramin Mostaghim, Mostafa Salem and Tamara Qiblawi, CNN
Updated 1709 GMT (0109 HKT) November 27, 2020
Tehran, Iran (CNN)Iran’s top nuclear scientist was reportedly killed Friday in an apparent assassination that the country’s foreign minister linked to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has not responded to CNN’s request for comment.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was head of the research center of new technology in the elite Revolutionary Guards. He was considered one of the masterminds of Iran’s controversial nuclear program.
A view of the scene where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahavadi, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, was killed in Absard, Iran.
Iranian state media said the killing appeared to be an assassination. Photographs from the scene showed a car with its windshield blown in, and the road strewn with glass and blood.
Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif called the death “cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role.”
“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today,” he 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 Trump administration said it is closely monitoring the apparent assassination. The death “would be a big deal,” a US official told CNN.
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.
This story has been updated to standardize the spelling of Fakhrizadeh’s name.
And here is the BBC’s coverage
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-55105934
And here is the BBC’s coverage
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-55105934