Bomb kills Iranian nuclear expert
Source: voanews.com
Iranian media say a bomb blast in Tehran has killed a university professor who also worked as a scientist on Iran’s nuclear program.Photo: Graphic
The Fars news agency said two unidentified people on a motorcycle planted the bomb under the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, killing him and his driver on Wednesday. The report said a passerby was wounded by the blast in the northern part of the capital.
In statements, Iran blamed the attack on Israel and the United States. Iran’s Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told state television that the incident will not stop the country from advancing its nuclear activities.
In response, the United States said it "had absolutely nothing to do’’ with the blast that killed Roshan. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the U.S. strongly condemns the attack and all acts of violence.
Earlier, a State Department spokeswoman said she would not discuss the matter of who may have been behind the attack.
Iran’s Fars agency said 32-year-old Roshan supervised a department at the Natanz nuclear facility, Iran’s main enrichment site. Iran has been enriching uranium to relatively low levels at the above-ground site.
The attack comes a day after Iranian officials confirmed that a new underground complex has started refining uranium, and diplomats with ties to the U.N. nuclear agency say the work is being done at a much higher lever of purity.
Attackers have killed or wounded several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years, including blasts in late 2010 that state media also attributed to bombs placed on cars by motorcyclists.
The U.N. Security Council has imposed four sets of sanctions on Iran for refusing to stop enrichment work, which has civilian and military uses. Later this month, the European Union will discuss a possible oil export embargo to further pressure on Iran.
Western powers accuse Iran of trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.
On Tuesday, Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantaz told parliamentarians that 2012 would be a "critical year" for Iran because things would happen to the country in an unnatural way.
Article from: voanews.com
Video from: YouTube.com
Roshan, 32, was inside the Iranian-assembled Peugeot 405 car together with two others when the bomb exploded near Gol Nabi Street in north Tehran, Fars reported. It said Roshan’s driver later died at a hospital from wounds sustained in the attack.
IRNA said an 85-year old passer-by was wounded in the blast.
Fars described the explosion as a "terrorist attack" targeting Roshan, a graduate of the prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.
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A similar bomb explosion exactly two years ago — Jan. 12, 2010 — killed Tehran University professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a senior physics professor. He was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded near his car as he was about to leave for work.
The semiofficial Mehr news agency said that Roshan had planned to attend a memorial ceremony later Wednesday for the slain professor.
In November 2010, a pair of back-to-back bomb attacks in different parts of the capital killed another nuclear scientist and wounded one more.
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And in July 2011, motorcycle-riding gunmen killed Darioush Rezaeinejad, an electronics student. Other reports identified him as a scientist involved in suspected Iranian attempts to make nuclear weapons.
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"Instead of actually fighting a conventional war, Western powers and their allies appear to be relying on covert war tactics to try to delay and degrade Iran’s nuclear advancement," said Theodore Karasik, a security expert at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.
He said the use of magnetic bombs bears the hallmarks of covert operations.
"It’s a very common way to eliminate someone," he added. "It’s clean, easy and efficient."
Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born analyst based in Israel, said Iran’s leadership is being pushed toward a decision on whether to "retaliate or compromise" as sanctions squeeze the economy and undercut the value of the Iranian rial.
Source news.yahoo.com
A mysterious toll of dead or disappeared Iranian nuclear scientists
Ed Note: At what point do these killings stop being "new cold war covert op assassinations" and start being cold blooded murders? The James Bond franchise, among other pop-culture tropes, has popularized and romanticized the idea of spy intrigue and extrajudicial killings, but if these acts were perpetrated on Western scientists they would be condemned as heinous acts of terrorism, the cowardly murder of civilians, and ’acts of war’.
In a time during which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not proven that Iran has created or is creating nuclear weapons (instead of, or in addition to, the right of nuclear energy for their nation), the killing and disappearances of civilian scientists is outrageous and unforgivable.
As the pressure increases through events like these, it will be less and less likely that either side, right or wrong, will have the ability to back down.
Who is it that so desires an end game that they will risk thermonuclear war to achieve it?
~E
