Iran vows revenge for assassination of scientist credited with masterminding past covert nuclear weapons program

An Iranian scientist whom Israel credited with masterminding the Islamic Republic’s now-defunct covert military nuclear program was assassinated outside Tehran on Friday, Iran's top diplomat confirmed.

"Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in a tweet. Zarif said Israel is probably to blame but did not provide evidence.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's killing comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly pressures President-elect Joe Biden not to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the accord in 2018.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed Saturday that the country would take revenge for Fakhrizadeh's killing and insisted his death would have no effect on Iran's nuclear knowledge. Tehran long has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes only. This claim has been met with international skepticism.

Fakhrizadeh was traveling east of Iran's capital when his car came under machine gun fire, according to Iranian state TV and the country's semiofficial Fars news agency.

Witnesses heard the sound of an explosion. A wounded Fakhrizadeh was taken to a hospital along with several of his bodyguards, the agency said.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility.

Iranian state TV said more information would be provided later. A statement by Iran’s armed forces said Fakhrizadeh died from his injuries in the hospital.

Israel's government declined to immediately comment on Fakhrizadeh, whom Israeli diplomats often refer to as Iran's "father of the bomb." During a news conference, Netanyahu once said of Fakhrizadeh, "Remember that name."

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Israel was suspected of carrying out targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists nearly a decade ago to halt its military nuclear program.

The nuclear pact Trump abandoned was negotiated under President Barack Obama in 2015, and some Iran experts, former diplomats and senior Iranian officials speculated that Fakhrizadeh's killing could be part of a concerted attempt to sabotage diplomacy between Iran and the incoming Biden administration.

Biden said he wants to revive the accord, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions.

"It's not unlikely that this targeted killing was part of efforts to prevent the Biden administration from reviving diplomacy with (Iran) and going back to the nuclear agreement," said Carl Bildt, Sweden's former prime minister, on Twitter.

Hossein Dehghan, a senior military adviser to Khamenei, also took to Twitter to offer a theory: "In the last days of the political life of their ally (Trump) ... (Israel) seeks to intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war," he said.

John Brennan, who served as CIA director during the Obama administration, slammed Fakhrizadeh’s killing as “a criminal act and highly reckless” and urged Iranian leaders to refrain from retaliating.

"It risks lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict,” Brennen wrote on Twitter. “Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage & to resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits.”

There is no indication the White House knew beforehand of the assassination plot.

Requests for comment from the U.S. National Security Council, U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Defense were declined. A spokesman for Biden's transition team also declined to comment.

Friday, Trump retweeted a newspaper article about Fakhrizadeh's assassination along with comments by an Israeli writer named Yossi Meman who claimed Fakhrizadeh's death "is a major psychological and professional blow for Iran."

Trump authorized the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani last year by drone strike when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander was in Baghdad.

Iran vowed to take revenge for Soleimani's killing. The one-year anniversary of his death is in January.

Iran remained in the nuclear pact with world powers – with loosened compliance – despite the U.S. withdrawal and maintained it is theoretically open to resuming the deal with U.S. participation.

Fakhrizadeh was a brigadier general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He led Iran’s "Amad," or "Hope," program, which Israel alleged was a military operation to probe the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon in Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the "Amad" program ended around 2003. IAEA inspectors monitor Iranian nuclear sites as part of the agreement with world powers.

The IAEA concluded this month that Iran’s uranium stockpile is 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear accord.

Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank that espouses a hard line on Iran, said Fakhrizadeh was "the most critical player in Iran’s nuclear efforts," and his removal has "enormous implications for whether Iran can continue to move forward without his know-how."

Dubowitz said the attack "certainly has the hallmarks of an Israeli operation" and noted that Fakhrizadeh had been on Israel’s target list for many years.

He said it’s not clear whether the United States had any role in the attack, but it’s likely the CIA at least got a heads up about the operation.

"I would imagine there was some information sharing or even more extensive cooperation," he said, especially given the strong relationship between CIA Director Gina Haspel and her Israeli counterpart, Yossi Cohen, head of Israel's Mossad spy agency.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh assassinated