Top Iranian nuclear scientist “assassinated”

(Worthy News) – An Iranian nuclear scientist, who Israel alleges was in charge of Iran’s military nuclear program until the early 2000s, has been assassinated, the Associated Press reports. Iranian state media have reported that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed on Friday. Israel has not immediately commented on the death.

According to Iran’s Fars news agency, Fakhrizadeh was killed in the city of Absard, east of Tehran, while traveling in a Nissan sedan car. Photos and a video shared online show blood in the road and the car with bullet holes through its windshield, AP reports.

Witnesses are reported to have heard an explosion followed by machine gunfire. The scientist had bodyguards who were among those injured in the attack and who were taken to hospital, AP said.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the killing, but Iranian media have noted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal interest in Fakhrizadeh: Netanyahu once called his name out in a press conference and said “Remember that name,” AP said.

In a tweet about the attack, Hossein Dehghan, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, warned: “In the last days of their gambling ally’s [U.S. President Donald Trump] political life, the Zionists seek to intensify and increase pressure on Iran to wage a full-blown war. We will descend like lightning on the killers of this oppressed martyr and we will make them regret their actions!”

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