Page 17 - MEOG Week 48

MEOG NEWS IN BRIEF MEOG

POLICY officials swore that Iran would properly assailants were killed in an exchange after the
revenge the death of Soleimani, but the ambush.
Israel out to provoke war response has remained relatively restrained programme is entirely peaceful, but in 2015,
Iran has always insisted that its nuclear
with officials switching to the line that Tehran
says Khamenei advisor would bide its time. the New York Times compared Fakhrizadeh
Many Iranian officials believe that Trump,
to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who
The assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist working with Israel and Saudi Arabia, is directed the Manhattan Project that during
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on November 27 has determined to weaken or antagonise Iran World War II produced the first atomic
been described by the top military adviser to before he hands over the American presidency weapons. In May 2018, around the time
the country’s supreme leader as a provocation to Joe Biden on January 20. Biden is set to that Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of
by Israel designed to push Iran into war pursue a diplomatic path in his efforts to place the multilateral nuclear deal, Israeli Prime
during the dying days of US President Donald sufficient curbs on Iran’s nuclear development Minister Benjamin Netanyahu specifically
Trump’s administration. programme and support for militias in various mentioned Fakhrizadeh. “Remember that
Following the ambushing of Fakhrizadeh’s Middle East conflicts. Whereas Trump has name,” Netanyahu told an audience as he
car by gunmen, Hossein Dehghan responded: attempted to use crushing sanctions to force identified Fakhrizedeh as the head scientist in
“In the last days of the political life of their Tehran to the table, Biden has suggested that Iran’s nuclear programme.
gambling ally, the Zionists seek to intensify he will remove sanctions and take Washington Between 2010 and 2012, four Iranian
and increase the pressure on Iran to wage a back into the nuclear deal between Iran and nuclear scientists were assassinated and Iran
full-fledged war. The night is long. We will the major powers, provided the Iranians has always accused Israel of complicity in
descend like lightning on the killers of this return to full compliance with the accord. The the killings. Security and secrecy around
oppressed martyr.” Israelis and the Saudis – whom some analysts Fakhrizadeh was stepped up following those
As Israel and the Pentagon remained say are just as concerned by Iran’s potential to assassinations.
silent on the killing, Iranian Foreign Minister achieve economic pre-eminence in the Gulf “If Iran ever chose to weaponise [the
Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted: “Terrorists as they are by its potential to eventually build enrichment of uranium], Fakhrizadeh would
murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. a nuclear weapon – are fiercely opposed to be known as the father of the Iranian bomb,”
This cowardice – with serious indications Biden’s strategy and a geopolitical game may one Western diplomat told Reuters news
of [an] Israeli role – shows desperate be under way to shift the pieces on the chess agency in 2014.
warmongering of [its]perpetrators Iran calls board in the final eight weeks of Trump’s Fakhrizadeh was head of the Institute of
on [the] international community – and presidency. Applied Physics, where Iran’s secret nuclear
especially [the] EU – to end their shameful “It’s not unlikely that this targeted killing research is conducted, in the elite Islamic
double standards & condemn this act of state was part of efforts to prevent the Biden Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). A
terror.” administration from reviving diplomacy with brigadier general in the IRGC and a professor
President Trump retweeted a posting from Iran and going back to the nuclear agreement,” of physics at Imam Hussein University, he
Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, an expert Carl Bildt, Sweden’s former prime minister, took charge of the predecessor to the institute
on the Israeli Mossad intelligence service, wrote on Twitter. in 1988. He had never been interviewed by
about the asssassination. Melman’s tweet Fakhrizadeh, born in the city of Qom in a member of the UN’s International Atomic
called the killing a “major psychological and 1958 by some accounts, was ambushed in Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog
professional blow for Iran”. the town of Absard in Damavand county, – which with permission from Tehran still
This year began with Trump authorising about 40 miles east of Tehran. Four assailants conducts regular checks on the Iranian
the assassination-by-drone at Baghdad airport opened fire with machine guns on the nuclear programme – but was named in one
of Qasem Soleimani, the major-general who Nissan sedan in which he was travelling after of its reports.
was the de facto head of Iran’s armed forces witnesses heard an explosion, according Iran’s government congratulated
and second most important official in the to local reports. Efforts to resuscitate him Fakhrizadeh on his “martyrdom”.
Islamic Republic behind Supreme Leader reportedly failed, while his bodyguard was The commander of the IRGC, Major
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many top Iranian wounded. Fars news agency reported that the General Hossein Salami, said that Iran

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