SHAFAQNA| by Leila Yazdani: Iran’s eminent scientist in the nuclear and defense fields, long identified by US and Israeli intelligence as a leading figure in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, was assassinated on Friday.
Iranian officials described the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh as an “act of state terror”. The New York Times said an American official and two other intelligence officials confirmed Israel was behind Friday’s assassination, without giving further details. But, Israel itself has not commented on Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.
While Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes only, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh pushed into the frame in 2018 by a presentation by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned listeners to “remember his name”. He was named by Netanyahu as the director of Iran’s nuclear program, The Guardian mentioned. Earlier, Reuters described Fakhrizadeh in 2014 as “an asset and an expert” dedicated to Iran’s technological progress.
Iran’s nuclear and defense scientist was born in 1958 in the city of Qom. Fakhrizadeh was a deputy defence minister, the former head of Iran’s Physics Research Center, and holds a nuclear engineering doctorate and taught at Iran’s University of Imam Hussein. Moreover, he headed the ministry of defence’s research and innovation organization. Iran’s eminent scientist had a great scientific profile and a long record in defence innovations. He spent many years of his life to promote Iran’s defence power and, managed the country’s program to defend the nation against nuclear threats.
He had trained many students in the defence field. His works are huge and fruitful. Thanks to martyr Fakhrizadeh’s extensive work in this domain, Iran now enjoys the necessary know-how and products in the field of nuclear defence as in other areas of the defence industry, Ifpnews mentioned. What is also noticeable is that Fakhrizadeh was a key figure in Iran’s fight against coronavirus. He was the leader of the team who developed one of the first Iranian kits for diagnosis of coronavirus.
Iran’s top scientist was one of five Iranian in the list of 500 most powerful people in the world listed by the American magazine Foreign Policy. Over the current decade, several top Iranian scientists have been targeted and assassinated in terrorist attacks. When looking closely, terrorist attack to assassinate Iran’s defense industry scientist seems to have been planned to create tension and to push Iran into a military confrontation when Washington’s maximum pressure doomed to total failure.
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Prominent Iranian nuclear scientist targeted in assassination attempt near Tehran
Prominent Iranian nuclear scientist targeted in assassination attempt near Tehran