Assassination - Iran says CIA/Mossad killed nuke scientist

[TonyGosling]

Iran accuses CIA, Mossad of nuke scientist killing
By Hiedeh Farmani (AFP) – 29th November
TEHRAN — Twin blasts in Iran's capital killed a top nuclear scientist and wounded another Monday, with Tehran swiftly blaming the CIA and Mossad for the attacks apparently carried out by men on motorcycles.
Slain scientist Majid Shahriari and Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, who survived the attack, were senior figures in Iran's nuclear programme, which the West suspects of having military aims. Tehran denies the charge.
The attacks came after diplomatic cables that whistleblower website WikiLeaks released on Sunday revealed Saudi Arabia's king "repeatedly" urged Washington to take military action against Tehran's nuclear programme.
Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedi-nia said the scientists were targeted on their way to work in two different parts of the capital by men on motorcycles who attached bombs to their cars.
"Dr. Shahriari was killed and his wife and driver were injured. Dr. Abbasi and his wife have been injured," he was quoted as saying in media reports.
Iran's presidential office and interior minister accused the US and Israeli intelligence services, the CIA and Mossad, of killing the two who were also professors at Tehran's prestigious Shahid Beheshti University.
"The Zionist regime this time shed the blood of university professor Dr. Majid Shahriari to curb Iran's progress," the office of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a statement posted on its website.
Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said the "Mossad and the CIA are the enemies of Iranians" whose "desperate terrorist act against the two academics shows their weakness and inferiority."
Israel's foreign ministry declined to comment on the reports.
Shahriari was "in charge of one of the great projects" at Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, the Islamic republic's nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
He was also a member of the so-called SESAME project on nuclear cooperation in the Middle East.
The other scientist, Abbasi Davani, was targeted by UN Security Council sanctions under Resolution 1747 adopted in March 2007. He was identified as a senior defence ministry and armed forces logistics scientist.
The 52-year-old was "one of the few specialists who can separate isotopes," and has been a member of the elite Revolutionary Guards since the 1979 Islamic revolution, one report said.
"The two were cooperating with the defence ministry in the field of nuclear research. Shahriari was the head of a project that sought to achieve the technology to design nuclear reactor core," said the hardline Rajanews website.
The police chief said the assailants had managed to escape and that "nobody had yet claimed responsibility" for the attacks.
In January, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, another Iranian nuclear scientist involved with the SESAME project, was killed in a bomb attack which Tehran blamed on "mercenaries" in the pay of Israel and the United States.
Salehi warned "enemies" of Iran they were "playing with fire" in reaction to the assassination.
The latest attacks came a day after the top US military officer said the United States was weighing military options in the face of Tehran's announcement it had an atomic power plant up and running.
"We've actually been thinking about military options for a significant period of time," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff said in an interview with CNN.
Mullen said he doesn't believe that Iran's nuclear plant is for civilian use "for a second."
"In fact, the information and intelligence that I've seen speak very specifically to the contrary. Iran is still very much on a path to be able to develop nuclear weapons, including weaponizing them, putting them on a missile and being able to use them," he said.
On Saturday, Iran said its first atomic power plant built by Russia in the southern city of Bushehr had begun operations, ahead of a new round of talks with Western powers over the country's controversial nuclear drive.
And in July, Iranian nuclear researcher Shahram Amiri said after returning to the Islamic republic that he had been held in the United States for more than a year after being "kidnapped" at gunpoint by two Farsi-speaking CIA agents in the Saudi city of Medina.

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http://www.presstv.com/detail/153391.html


'Iran will bring UNSC members to trial'

Press TV, 1 December 2010


A day after the terrorist attacks against two Iranian scientists, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warns of bringing permanent members of UN Security Council (UNSC) to trial.


"By God, if such an incident takes place one more time, we will bring each permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to trial," said President Ahmadinejad in northern Iranian province of Mazandaran on Tuesday, IRNA reported.

"If the terror attack against Iranian scientists is repeated once more, we will pursue all cases before the Islamic Revolution, [in addition to] 160,000 martyrs of the Sacred Defense [in the Iraqi imposed war in the 1980's] and 40,000 martyrs in different parts of the country," he said.

"They think by taking away our nuclear scientists or scientists, our nation's momentum towards progress will stop,” he emphasized. “This time too, they committed a mistake."

The Iranian chief executive cautioned enemies of the Islamic Revolution and said, "You are mistaken. We hold those who imposed the resolutions accountable for such crimes because in [one] resolution, they mentioned the names of our scientists as subject of the sanction."

"It is obvious that the United Nations is in cahoots with Zionists (Israelis)," President Ahmadinejad underlined.

He noted that history has proven that the Iranian nation knows how to teach enemies a lesson and make them feel remorseful.

Addressing arrogant powers, the Iranian president emphasized, "[Your] path of committing terror against Iranian scientists will merely make your case darker because the Iranian nation has so far given 200,000 martyrs, but has never stepped back (from its legitimate position)."

President Ahmadinejad pointed to the West's call for renewed talks with Iran, saying, "Is this how you want to start off the negotiations? Your conduct shows that your intent (in talks) is enmity."

Yet unidentified terrorists attached explosives to the cars of Dr. Majid Shahriari and Professor Fereydoun Abbasi in different locations on Monday morning. Shahriari was killed immediately after a blast, but Abbasi and his wife escaped the bombing with minor injuries.

Resolution 1747 adopted by the UNSC in March 2007 against the Islamic Republic specifically cited Abbasi's name as a "nuclear scientist," thus suggesting that perpetrators behind the assassination could be traced through those who included the professor's name in the UN resolution.

Iran has blamed Israel and Western powers for the terrorist attacks, hinting at the possible connection between the recent remarks of the head of the British intelligence agency (MI6) about Iran and the European Parliament's new stance regarding an anti-Iran terrorist group.

On July 12, Iranian nuclear physics scientist Dr. Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was killed in a remote-controlled bomb attack in the Iranian capital of Tehran.

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[TonyGosling]

Iran broadcasts 'confession' of man it says was part of assassination plot

Majid Jamali-Fash says he was hired by Israel as part of network ordered to kill Iranian scientist Masoud Ali-Mohammadi

Saeed Kamali Dehghan - guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 January 2011

Iran's state TV has broadcast the apparent confession of a man it describes as "the main element" of an Israeli-trained network involved in the assassination of an Iranian scientist last year.
The young man, identified as Majid Jamali-Fash, said last night that he was hired by Israel and trained at a military base outside Tel Aviv before being dispatched to Iran as a part of network ordered to kill Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, a Tehran University particle physicist.
Mohammadi was blown up outside his house last January when a remote-control bomb that had been attached to a motorcycle parked on the street detonated in a northern suburb of Tehran.
Jamali-Fash claimed that he was briefed about Mohammadi in Israel and was given detailed instructions of the assassination plot "in a military camp situated in the highway between Tel Aviv to Jerusalem".
"Two new Iranian-made motorbikes were there [In Israel] … They told me where to go, where to stop, who to call and how to do things back in Iran," he said.
At the time of the assassination, it was not immediately clear whether Mohammadi was involved in Iran's nuclear activities, and speculation was rife over the reasons for his killing when it emerged that he was a supporter of the Iranian opposition. But later it was revealed that he was a member of an Iranian team at the Sesame Council, a joint project involving different countries including Israel which runs a particle accelerator in Jordan.................
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/11/iran-confession-assassinat ion-plot