Iran accuses US, Israel in bomb attack on nuclear scientist

[Elzenga]

Het laatste bericht laat een heel andere kant zien. Mogelijk is het een interne aanslag omdat de wetenschapper te kritische tegen het regime stond.

Dat lijkt me merkwaardig....want dan is er ook nog de optie van oppakken en ergens vastzetten. Ik vermoed dat juist zijn kritische houding richting het regime nu wordt "gebruikt"  als decoy...Of hij moet op het punt hebben gestaan over te lopen naar het Westen of Israël...Maar ook dan is oppakken en vastzetten een veel logischere stap dan doden op deze wijze. En waarom dan met een bom?...Als de killer van het regime afkomstig is zou een liquidatie bij kogel net zo makkelijk zijn...Ik vermoed dus dat de Mossad hier bezig is...

[VandeWiel]

Het laatste bericht laat een heel andere kant zien. Mogelijk is het een interne aanslag omdat de wetenschapper te kritische tegen het regime stond.

[VandeWiel]

Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, one of the country's leading nuclear scientists, is killed outside his home on his way to work. Reformists said he had become vocal in his opposition to the government.

Reporting from Tehran and Beirut - A powerful bomb blast killed one of Iran's leading nuclear scientists this morning in a quiet northern Tehran neighborhood as he was leaving home for work, officials said.

Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, 50, was described by colleagues as a respected Tehran University nuclear physicist. Reformist websites and two students also described him as an outspoken supporter of opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

Hard-line Iranian officials immediately blamed Israel and the West for the assassination, which came at a time of heightened tension over Iran's nuclear program.

State television described Ali-Mohammadi as a "revolutionary university professor martyred in a terrorist operation by counterrevolutionary agents affiliated" with the West.

"Considering the kind of attack and previous threats by security and terrorist services close to America and the Zionist regime, probably this terrorist attack was sponsored by those services," said a report on the news website Tabnak.

The West and Israel have vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear-weapons capability. Iran's top diplomat last month accused the United States and Saudi Arabia of kidnapping nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who worked for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization and disappeared during a summer religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

But Iran is also in the grips of its greatest domestic crisis since the 1979 revolution, with political violence escalating.

Even Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei demanded that pro-government vigilantes rein in their activities following the assassination of Mousavi's nephew in December and an alleged attack on opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi last week.

Though hard-line news outlets described Ali-Mohammadi as a former member of the Revolutionary Guard, a stalwart supporter of the Islamic Republic and a loyalist to Khamenei, others contradicted that assessment.

Ali Moqari, president of the science department at Tehran University, told the Mehr news agency that Ali-Mohammadi "had no political activity."

One student of nuclear physics told The Times she believed Ali-Mohammadi was killed because of his outspoken support for the student movement. Another said Ali-Mohammadi cut his ties with the Revolutionary Guard years ago and in recent months had been vocal in his opposition to the Islamic Republic.

"Since two months ago, he has been venting his frustration with almost everybody in the system," said the student, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He was openly criticizing high-ranking officials in classes."

The reformist news websites Ayandenews and Rahesabz identified Ali-Mohammadi as among a list of scholars campaigning for Mousavi during his presidential run against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A graduate of Tehran's Sharif University of Technology, Ali-Mohammadi began teaching quantum physics and electromagnetic theory at Tehran University in 1995. He has written books on nuclear science and advised PhD candidates on their dissertations.

Officials offered different scenarios of the bombing. Some said the bomb was attached to a motorcycle. Another said it was in a trash bin and set to detonate by remote control.

Neighbors said Ali-Mohammadi had lived for decades in an old bungalow set amid new multistory apartment buildings in a quiet, leafy neighborhood in northern Tehran.

Iranian news reports said he was leaving home for work when the explosion erupted. Witnesses said the 7:30 a.m. explosion shattered windows for 150 to 300 feet around.

"Most probably, the bomb had been fixed to the motorcycle outside Mr. Ali-Mohammadi's house and exploded by remote control," Fakhreddin Jaarzadeh, a Tehran prosecutor, told the Iranian Students News Agency.

Two people were reported injured and a car was set ablaze, witnesses and news reports said.

"I was shocked," said one resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I was at breakfast, and our glass breakfast table shattered."

Police cordoned off the area as utility workers tried to restore downed power lines.

Iranian officials said forensic experts were conducting examinations but that no suspects had been arrested.



http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-iran-scientist-bomb13-2010jan13,0,6007483.story

[VandeWiel]

Iran's foreign ministry has accused the United States and Israel and their "mercenaries" of carrying out a bomb attack which killed a nuclear scientist, state media has reported.

Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran university, died when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle was triggered by remote control outside his home in the northern Tehran neighbourhood of Qeytariyeh, state media said.

"One can see in preliminary investigations signs of evilness by the triangle of the Zionist regime, America and their mercenaries in Iran in this terrorist incident," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

"Such terrorist acts and the physical elimination of the country's nuclear scientists will certainly not stop the scientific and technological process but will speed it up," he added.

Tehran's chief prosecutor implicated US and Israeli intelligence services.

"Given the fact that Massoud Ali Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, the CIA and Mossad services and agents most likely have had a hand in it," Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the state broadcaster's news service.

Bomb attacks are rare in Iran although several security officials and members of the elite Revolutionary Guards have been killed in bombings by rebels in restive Sistan-Baluchestan province in the east of the country.

A witness said the explosion was a "strong blast breaking windows in neighbouring houses and cars."

Iran's state-run Arabic-language television Al-Alam identified Mohammadi as a "hezbollahi" teacher - a term used for staunch supporters of the Iranian regime.

"This assassination may have been carried out by the Hypocrites [Iran's exiled People's Mujahedeen opposition] or planned by the Zionist regime," Al-Alam said.

Iranian authorities have consistently accused archfoes the United States and Israel of seeking to foment unrest in Iran.

The two countries have never ruled out a military strike to thwart Iran's controversial nuclear drive, which the West suspects is masking an atomic weapons program.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/12/2790965.htm?section=justin