TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani has said Israel was behind the assassination of Iran’s prominent scientist.
“Once again, the evil hands of global arrogance and their Zionist mercenaries, were stained with the blood of another Iranian, causing deep grief across the nation for losing a hard-working scientist,” Rouhani said in a message on Saturday.
Undoubtedly, he said, the horrific terrorist attack is due to the inability of Iran’s enemies against the country’s scientific movement and the honors and capabilities of the great nation of Iran.
“It also comes after the enemies’ repeated defeats in the region and other political arenas, and the depth of their malice and resentment,” the president noted, according to Mehr.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 59, was killed on Friday in a terrorist attack involving at least one explosion and small fire by a number of assailants in Absard city of Damavand County, Tehran Province.
According to Fars news agency, the attack targeted the vehicle carrying Fakhrizadeh, who headed the Defense Ministry’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND).
Rouhani said the enemies of the Iranian nation should know that the martyrdom of people like Fakhrizadeh not only will not disrupt the will of the Iranian youth and scientists to follow the path of accelerated scientific growth and conquering the peaks of honor, but it will also make them more determined to continue the path of this precious martyr.
“Without doubt, the Defense Ministry will fill the void of this great scientist with the help of his hard-working and selfless colleagues and students,” he added.
The president further said, “I would like to express my deepest condolences to the respectable family of this great martyr and to the Iranian nation and the scientific community.”
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also strongly condemned the terrorist attack, saying there were “serious indications” of the Israeli regime’s role in the assassination of Fakhrizadeh, a professor of physics at Imam Hussein University of Tehran.
“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators,” Zarif tweeted on Friday.
“Iran calls on int'l community—and especially EU—to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror,” he added.
The New York Times quoted three U.S. officials as saying on Friday that Israel was behind the assassination.
One American official — along with two other intelligence officials — said that Israel was behind the attack on the scientist,” The New York Times reported.
“It was unclear how much the United States may have known about the operation in advance, but the two nations are the closest of allies and have long shared intelligence regarding Iran,” it added.
Fakhrizadeh’s name was mentioned multiple times in a presentation in 2018 by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which he repeated baseless accusations about Iran’s nuclear program.
Netanyahu described the scientist as the director of Iran’s nuclear program and warned, “Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh.”
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