Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in a file image IRNA
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the scientist considered the father of Iran's nuclear program, was assassinated on Friday, according to a statement from the Iranian Defense Ministry reported by the state-run PressTV.
Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, suspicions fall on Israel, whose secret services were blamed for similar actions a few years ago.
The press office of the Defense Ministry has said that Fakhrizadeh, who headed the Defense Research and Innovation Organization, "has been seriously injured in a confrontation between his security team and terrorists, has been transferred to the hospital", where he has died.
According to the Fars agency, Fakhrizadeh has been the target of a mixed attack with small arms and at least one explosion at the entrance to the town of Absard, about 90 kilometers east of Tehran.
Although his death has been confirmed by state television, the denial of the spokesman for the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization has created confusion.
“He is in the hospital and his death has not yet been confirmed.
There is unconfirmed information that he is still alive, ”Iranian journalist and researcher Abas Aslani tweeted, implying that the attack has occurred.
Fakhrizadeh, a member of the Revolutionary Guard and a Physics professor at Imam Hosein University (where the regime's most prestigious scientists train), was considered by Western intelligence centers as the father of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
He is credited with hatching the alleged covert plan to make an atomic bomb that Tehran would have disrupted in 2003, a year after its secret nuclear activity was discovered.
Iran has always denied that its program had military objectives.
Still, there is almost unanimity that Fakhrizadeh is the person who knew all of Iran's nuclear secrets.
Significantly, that country has for years rejected requests to interview him from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose inspectors monitor that the Iranian atomic program is not diverted to military use.
"Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a presentation in 2018 in which he revealed the details of the secret program, according to a file his agents had managed to extract from Iran.
Netanyahu also assured then that after the closure of the project, the scientist had continued working on "special projects" within an organization of the Ministry of Defense.
At least four Iranian scientists linked to the nuclear program were killed between 2010 and 2012, in operations attributed to Israel, something that their spokesmen have always denied.
This new assassination attempt comes at a time of special tension due to the replacement at the head of the United States, since Israel and Saudi Arabia, the main rivals of the Islamic Republic in the region, fear that the president-elect, Joe Biden, will retake the nuclear deal and scrap the maximum pressure policy of its predecessor.
