Iran accuses US, Israel in nuclear scientist murder

Iran's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it has found traces of US and Israel's involvement in the assassination of an Iranian nuclear physics scientist.

"Primary investigations into the assassination revealed signs of the involvement of the Zionist regime [Israel], the US and their allies in Iran," ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said.

Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran University, was killed by a booby-trapped motorbike blast in the Iranian capital earlier in the day.

The explosion took place near the professor's home in the Qeytariyeh neighborhood of northern Tehran.

Mehman-Parast strongly condemned the assassination, saying the participation of Israeli and American agents "runs counter to international regulations."

He, however, said such moves would not affect Iran's pursuit of civilian nuclear technology.

"Such terrorist moves and apparent omission of Iranian nuclear scientists will definitely cause no obstacle in the way of the country's scientific and technological development. Rather they will speed up it."

An analyst said the terror is most likely sponsored by the West.

Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University, told Press TV that Ali-Mohammadi's colleagues at the capital's most prestigious university believe the attack was orchestrated by the West.

"It is widely believed among colleges that he was assassinated by terrorist organizations probably supported by the United States and has connections with the Americans and the Israelis under different names," he said.

"Unfortunately when it comes to Iran anything is acceptable in the eyes of the foreign powers."

Source: PressTV

It's always interesting to open Abu's thread just to see what it's actually about. it's a bit like a lucky dip of fringe.

I would liked to see a few mysterious car accedents in Teheran, along a certain  pattern - Prez, Grand Bearded Pinhead, Republican Guards Head Honcho, just the most toxic ones. And the others can watch and learn.

abu_rashid wrote on Jan 14^th, 2010 at 7:56am:



That would not be terrorism - innocent civilians would not be harmed. It would be a lesson.

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Really? So heads of state, ministers of religious affairs etc. are not considered civilians by you, and murdering them is quite a legitimate act? Interesting...

Have you actually watched al-Jazeerah? The idea that it's pro-Islam or pro-Arab is not really accurate, and most people just assume this, since it originated in an Arabic country. If you watch/read/listen to al-Jazeerah, you'll find they actually present a very wide range of views. They bring opponents of Islam, they also report a lot about parts of the world rarely reported about (not Islamic/Arabic places either)

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Can you give an example? I've always found them to be pretty even handed, perhaps even a little too much to the Western side, especially since it was setup by one of America's closest ally's in the region (The Emir of Qatar).

But they are unique amongst Arab media, in that they don't just run the same state-controlled mind numbing nonsense. They actually are not afraid to ask questions, to report what's actually happening, rather than what's politically correct, and this has resulted in them being booted out of a lot of places, 'Western' and Arab alike and censored. From the U.S bombing their office in Kabul, to the 2002-2004 ban from Bahrain, and from the various bans and restrictions imposed by Israel and arrest of their reporters there, to Iraq's ongoing bickering with the network about it not presenting a positive enough image of their regime. Not to mention that one of their reporters ended up in Guantanamo Bay and another is serving 7 years in Spain, merely for interviewing Bin Laden, something plenty of other reporters have done, and yet had immunity from being prosecuted for.

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Not true. sometimes the U.S just will appear as the bad guy because... surprise, they are. Other times I've seen them bring American and Israeli spokespeople and give them clear passage to say whatever they like. I've seen Mark Regev, the Melburnian who became Israel's propaganda spokesman on there several times, and he uses al-Jazeerah quite adeptly as a platform to present Israel's case and make it convincing. He's not framed in a negative light at all.

I think people's perceptions about al-Jazeerah are largely built around myth. Like Rumsfeld's claim that it broadcasts kidnapping victims being beheaded, when they've never done anything of the kind.

It's quite obvious the Western media refrains from reporting a lot of stuff, and anything to do with conflicts in which the West is involved, it invariably paints them as the good guys. al-Jazeerah is not tied to any government in that way, and you'll never find it doing that. There's no "embedded with the Talibaan" program like the U.S military for instance has. You will find it reporting on the good and bad of both sides. You've probably only ever bothered to watch a few segments in which they've reported the bad of the West, and therefore extrapolate that the entire channel must be based on that. Do yourself a favour and watch a bit more of it, I think anyone who likes to think outside the usual propaganda constraints of Sky or Fox will find it a breath of fresh air.

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I gotta disagree there. Our media is extremely biased towards our world view, and always has been. They do try to project an aura of objectivity, but that actually makes it worse, since in reality it's not objective at all, yet deludes a lot of people into thinking it is. But because they sometimes publish the nitty gritty details of the failings of some when it's in the interests of the internal politics of the country or some other powerbrokers to do so, they do.

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Agreed, but a news outlet like al-Jazeerah has a lot less reason to be biased. It's not tied to any great supwerpower or world view that has a deep interest in promoting a certain agenda. Some have tried to claim this about Islam, but al-Jazeerah has no interest in promoting Islam at all, and this is quite obvious in the fact that many of the infamous speakers against Islam, like Wafa Sultan, have had their start on al-Jazeerah.

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The fact you'd ask such a preposterous question just highlights how biased you yourself must be. Openly supporting or not supporting Israel is no measure of how biased a media outlet is, anymore than asking "how many reporters on fox news openly support Hamas" is a measure of how biased fox news is.

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A wide range of views also doesn't give us an accurate measure of how biased a media outlet is. The most varied of views could still all be biased.

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Come on you gotta be kidding. The Western media, with the exception of the trashy tabloids, and the occasional leftist leaning outlet pretty much all carry the exact same stories. I've worked within one of Australia's largest media outlets, and I'm well aware how they get their media. It's all fed to them by the exact same source that most other Western media outlets get the bulk of  their news from. They then put a little network-specific spin on it, re-package it and send it out as their own product.

There's nothing "cosmopolitan" about it at all. And this is the reason al-Jazeerah English has been such a hit, because finally someone is broadcasting real news in English, free from the constraints of the mass media and it's positions.

Just as an example, look at the coverage from the the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Whenever an Israeli victim is shown, you get an image of a human being, just like you or me, you hear about their family situation, about their hopes and aspirations for the future etc. Yet whenever you hear about Palestinian victims, you just hear of them as 1 of a number, faceless statistics... The Western media is not even interested in telling their stories. They don't bother (except on the rare occasion, and mostly since several well researched documentaries exposed this glaring bias) to follow up the personal angle of the Palestinian victims whatsoever. Yet almost every single time we hear about Israelis, we get a very in depth picture of their life and their humanity. I'd suggest watching "Peace propaganda and the Promised land" for a well researched report about this, the bias of the Western media on this issue alone is just striking, yet few ever realise it.

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This just shows that the SMH has several biased views, rather than not being biased. You need to realise the difference between these two things. Just having a range of views, doesn't make them not biased.

And I've never come across an article in the Western media which portrays Israel as the demon of the earth. I think you're being a little excessive there.

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That's right, because al-Jazeerah doesn't promote biased views in either direction. It's reporters are under strict guidelines to just report what's there, not what fits in their personal views or beliefs or what's in accordance with their government's position in the world.

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al-Jazeerah has reporters from all over the world. al-Jazeerah english especially has a very wide range of backgrounds for their reporters. And even those of Muslim background are mostly Westerners anyway like Riz Khan, who was a former BBC presenter, and has grown up in the West all his life, being born actually in the British colony in Yemen. But the vast bulk of them are not Muslims nor Arabs.