{"id":221280,"date":"2020-11-27T17:24:51","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T17:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=221280"},"modified":"2020-11-30T07:20:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T07:20:56","slug":"suspected-iranian-nuclear-mastermind-fakhrizadeh-assassinated-near-tehran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=221280","title":{"rendered":"Suspected Iranian nuclear mastermind Fakhrizadeh assassinated near Tehran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reuters \u2013 Nov 27, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n

An Iranian scientist long suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb programme was killed in an ambush near Tehran on Friday, likely to provoke confrontation between Iran and its foes in the last weeks of Donald Trump\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

The military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to strike against the killers of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who died of injuries in hospital after armed assassins fired on his car, state media reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr and will make them regret their action,\u201d tweeted Hossein Dehghan, also a military commander.<\/p>\n

Fakhrizadeh has long been described by Western countries as a leader of a covert atomic bomb programme halted in 2003, which Israel and the United States accuse Tehran of trying to restore in secret. Iran has long denied seeking to weaponise nuclear energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the medical team did not succeed in reviving (Fakhrizadeh), and a few minutes ago, this manager and scientist achieved the high status of martyrdom after years of effort and struggle,\u201d Iran\u2019s armed forces said in a statement carried by state media.<\/p>\n

Semi-official news agency Tasnim said \u201cterrorists blew up another car\u201d before firing on a vehicle carrying Fakhrizadeh and his bodyguards in an ambush outside the capital.<\/p>\n

Whoever is responsible for the attack, it is certain to escalate tension between Iran and the United States in the final weeks of Trump\u2019s U.S. presidency.<\/p>\n

Trump, who lost his re-election bid on Nov. 3 and leaves office on Jan. 20, has repeatedly accused Iran of secretly seeking nuclear weapons. Trump pulled the United States out of a deal under which santions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. President-elect Joe Biden has said he would restore it.<\/p>\n

A U.S. official confirmed earlier this month that Trump had sought from military aides a plan for a possible strike on Iran, but had decided against it at that time.<\/p>\n

Fakhrizadeh is thought to have headed what the U.N. nuclear watchdog and U.S. intelligence services believe was a coordinated nuclear weapons programme in Iran, shelved in 2003.<\/p>\n

He was the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency\u2019s 2015 \u201cfinal assessment\u201d of open questions about Iran\u2019s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n

AMAD PLAN<\/h2>\n

The IAEA\u2019s report said that he oversaw activities \u201cin support of a possible military dimension to (Iran\u2019s) nuclear programme\u201d within the so-called AMAD Plan.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu said in a 2018 presentation accusing Iran of continuing to seek nuclear weapons that Fakhrizadeh was still working within Iran\u2019s Defence Ministry on \u201cspecial projects\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember that name, Fakhrizadeh,\u201d Netanyahu said at the time.<\/p>\n

On Friday before the news of the attack on Fakhrizadeh emerged, an Israeli official said Israel was discussing with and Gulf Arab states how to tackle Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story is not Trump, nor even Israel. The story is Iran – the growing dread that a new U.S. administration will go back to the nuclear deal which threatens the very existence of the Gulf countries,\u201d Tzachi Hanegbi, who sits in Netanyahu\u2019s security cabinet, told Tel Aviv radio station 102 FM. \u201cWe will know how to handle the issue of the Iranian threat, even if through our own means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2018 Israel accused Tehran of working on a secret nuclear weapons program. \u201cRemember that name, Fakhrizadeh,\u201d Netanyahu said at the time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":221283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Iran","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221284,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221280\/revisions\/221284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/221283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}