Israel behind hit on architect of Iranian nuclear weapons program — NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-scientist-assas...LIVE UPDATES
Live Updates: Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist Killed in Attack, State Media Say
The scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was described by U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments as the force behind Iran’s nuclear weapons program. News reports in Iran say he died after being attacked in a vehicle.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-behind-hit-on-architect-of-iranian-nuclear-...Three intelligence officials tell paper that Jerusalem is responsible for assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, as Iran vows ‘severe revenge’ for killing
By TOI staff and Agencies Today, 9:21 pm
According to Channel 12, Fakhrizadeh was not only “the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” but the man determined to ensure that “he delivered the bomb” for the ayatollahs. He was also a ballistic missiles expert, closely involved in Iran’s missile development, it said.
The killing happened in Absard, a village just east of the capital that is a retreat for the Iranian elite. Iranian state television said an
old truck with explosives hidden under a load of wood blew up near a sedan carrying Fakhrizadeh.
As Fakhrizadeh’s sedan stopped, at least five gunmen emerged and raked the car with rapid gunfire, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said.
Fakhrizadeh died at a hospital after doctors and paramedics couldn’t revive him. Others wounded included Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards. Photos and video shared online showed a Nissan sedan with bullet holes in the windshield and blood pooled on the road.
Top Iranian officials earlier pointed to Israel as the likely culprit.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claimed there were “serious indications of [an] Israeli role” in the assassination.
“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice — with serious indications of Israeli role — shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators,” Zarif wrote on Twitter. He also called on the international community to “end their shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror.”
State television described Fakhrizadeh as one “of our country’s nuclear scientists” and said Israel “had an old and deep enmity towards him.”
Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri called Fakhrizdeh’s death “a bitter and heavy blow to the country’s defense system” and warned of “severe revenge” for those behind it, accusing “the malicious Zionist entity of committing [the] brutal act.”
“We assure [Iranians] that we will not rest until we have chased and punished” those involved, Bagheri said in tweets.