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Iran: ‘Strong evidence’ Israel behind assassination of nuclear scientist

Iran renews threat to stage revenge attack, says Israeli attack was supported by the U.S.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Hatami said Wednesday the Islamic Republic has “serious evidence” that Israel was involved in the November 2020 assassination of Iran’s nuclear mastermind Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and warned Iran would exact revenge, the Fars News agency reported.

Hatami sent a letter to 60 other defense ministers in different countries accusing Israel of playing a role “in the assassination of Dr. Fakhrizadeh.”

“Iran possesses strong evidence that the Zionist regime was involved in the assassination. The Zionist intelligence services have a dark history of assassinating Iranian scientists,” Hatami wrote in the letter.

“Silence on this terrorist act will result in its repetition and insecurity in the world,” Hatami said, adding that Iran “preserves the right to respond to the assassination.”

The previously unheard of Fakhrizadeh, whose identity was kept secret by Iran, was killed in November in an apparent high-tech assassination by a remote-controlled machine gun that Iran blamed on Israel.

Iran’s state-run Press TV reported unnamed sources told the station that the remains of the weapon used in the attack “show that it was made in Israel.”

The Fars report also said that “Israel is not able to carry out such dangerous operations without the prior information and support of the United States.”

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“Unfortunately, the operation was very complicated and was carried out by using electronic equipment and no one was present on the scene,” said Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, “but some clues are available, and the identity and records of the designer of the operation has been discovered by us.”

“Certainly … the Zionist regime and Mossad are the criminal mastermind of this incident,” Shamkhani added.

A previous Fars report claimed Israel’s Mossad spy agency gained access to Fakhrizadeh’s name via a UN list which referred to him as a senior scientist of Iran’s Defense Ministry’s Physics Research Center.

Following the killing, the Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami said “revenge for the terror attack is already on the country’s agenda.”

“The enemies of the Iranian nation … should also know that such crimes will not undermine the resolve of the Iranians to continue this glorious and power-generating path, and harsh revenge and punishment is on agenda for them,” Salami said.