Iran’s government-backed Mehr news agency reported that a satellite-controlled machine gun was used to assassinate top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last week. Since Fakhrizadeh’s killing on November 27, various reports of how he was assassinated have surfaced, but the latest is among the most detailed accounts to have emerged.
According to a Reuters report, US intelligence agencies believe that Fakhrizadeh headed a coordinated nuclear weapons programme in Iran that was stopped in 2003, where he oversaw activities “in support of a possible military dimension to (Iran’s) nuclear programme”.
Iran’s nuclear weapons programme has been a bone of contention between Tehran and Washington D.C., although the former insists that the development of the programme is not for any hostile purposes.
Unfortunately, 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,” Reuters reported Iran’s armed forces saying in a statement.
Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif addressed the killings saying: “Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today.
