An Iranian nuclear scientist was blown up in his car by a motorbike hitman on Wednesday, prompting Tehran to blame Israeli and US agents but insist the killing would not derail a nuclear programme that has raised fears of war and threatened world oil supplies.
The fifth daylight attack on technical experts in two years, the killer's magnetic bomb delivered a targeted blast to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan's silver sedan as he drove down a busy street close to Tehran University during the morning rush hour. The chemical engineer's passenger also died, Iranian media said, while a passer-by was slightly hurt.
Israel, whose military chief had warned Iran only on Tuesday to expect more mysterious mishaps, declined to comment. While many analysts saw Israeli or Western involvement as eminently plausible, the role of local or other Middle Eastern hands in a deadly shadow war of bluff and sabotage could not be ruled out. The killing, which left debris hanging in trees and body parts on the road, came in a week of heightened tension: Iran has started an underground uranium enrichment plant and sentenced an American to death for spying; Washington and Europe have stepped up efforts to cripple Iran's oil exports for its refusal to halt work that the West says betrays an ambition to build nuclear weapons, not the power plants Iran claims.
Iran has threatened to choke the West's supply of Gulf oil, drawing a US warning that its navy was ready to open fire to prevent any blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. However, analysts saw the latest assassination, which would have taken some preparation, as part of a longer-running, cover effort to thwart Iran's nuclear development programme that has also included suspected computer viruses and mystery explosions.
While fears of war have forced up oil prices, the region has seen periods of sabre-rattling and limited bloodshed before without reaching all-out conflict. However, a willingness in Israel, which sees an imminent Iranian atom bomb as a threat to its existence, to attack Iranian nuclear sites, with or without US backing, has heightened the sense that a crisis is coming.
"HEINOUS ACT" Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, which has failed to persuade the West that its quest for nuclear power has no hidden military goal, said the killing of Ahmadi-Roshan would not deter it: "We will continue our path without any doubt ... Our path is irreversible," it said in a statement carried on television.
"The heinous acts of America and the criminal Zionist regime will not disrupt our glorious path ... The more you kill us, the more our nation will awake." First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, quoted by IRNA news agency, said: "Iran's enemies should know they cannot prevent Iran's progress by carrying out such terrorist acts."
Preparing for its first national election since a disputed presidential vote in 2009 brought street protests against 30 years of clerical rule, Iran's leaders are struggling to contain internal tensions. Defiance of Israel and Western powers plays well with many voters in the nation of 76 million. Israel, whose Mossad intelligence agency has a history of covert killings abroad, declined comment on Wednesday's bombing.
Comments
Comments are closed.