Iran has made arrests in connection with the assassination of its chief nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, according to sources of Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA. An adviser to the Iranian parliament speaker, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said in a televised address on Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam TV that perpetrators of the assassination, some of whom have been identified and even arrested by the security services, will not escape justice.
Sources of Iran’s state press had earlier cited the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps officials as witnesses, who claimed that the Iranian nuclear scientist was targeted using a satellite-controlled machine gun outfitted with “artificial intelligence” and a hi-profile camera zoomed in on him, exempting his wife sitting in the motorcade next to him and fired 13 shots.
The Israeli and US military had labelled Fakhrizadeh as head of Iran’s “rogue” nuclear weapons program. On the day of the assassination, the deputy commander of the country’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had reported exchanges of fire between the hit squad and the scientist’s security team, following a truck explosion on a highway outside Tehran. Dubbed as the founder of Iran’s nuclear program in the 2000s, Fakhrizadeh is reported to have held discreet information and security details of 11 guards while he was traveling with his wife on Nov. 27. Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi told state’s Mehr news agency that a machine gun shot 4 bullets on the head of Fakhrizadeh’s security detail; shortly it focused on Fakhrizadeh and launched 13 rounds of fire in his face.
