Iranian nuclear scientist is ‘injured in attempted assassination near Tehran’ reports in Iran claim
A nuclear scientist dubbed ‘father of the Iranian bomb’ has been injured in an assassination attempt, state-run media reports.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi – a professor of physics and former officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – was the target of a ‘terrorist operation’ near Tehran, sources told state-controlled news agency IRIB reports.
Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi was named in UN sanctions resolutions because of his work on suspected nuclear weapons development.
His reported death has lead many to speculate that he is ‘Iran’s nuclear Qassem Soleimani’.
Soleimani, a major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was assasinated in a US drone strike in January this year.
In 2007, he was named as the chairman of the Field for the Expansion of Deployment of Advanced Technology (FEDAT) in a leaked Iranian document.
The FEDAT was the cover name for the organisation behind Iran’s nuclear weapons programme and the document puroportedly showed the country’s four-year plan to develop a uranium deuteride neutron initiator.
A spokesperson for the Atomic Energy Organization in Iran stressed that no accident had occurred and all scientists were safe and well.
More to follow on this breaking news story…
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi – a nuclear scientist dubbed ‘father of the Iranian bomb’ – has been assassinated, state-run media reports.