Tehran,<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s president on Saturday joined other top officials in accusing Israel of killing the country\u2019s top nuclear scientist, an incident fanning the flames of tension in the region.<\/p>\n
Speaking a day after Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed by unidentified assailants on the outskirts of the capital Tehran, Hassan Rouhani said the killing will not affect Iran\u2019s scientific progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce again, the evil hands of global arrogance were stained with the blood of the mercenary usurper Zionist regime,\u201d he said, referring to Iran\u2019s arch-enemy Israel.<\/p>\n
He further said that the \u201chorrific terrorist incident\u201d sprang from the \u201cinability\u201d of the \u201cenemies of Iran\u201d to hold back its scientific progress and development.<\/p>\n
Calls for revenge have been growing in Iran after many top military and political officials pointed their fingers directly at Israel and vowed \u201cstrong retaliation.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is the second high-profile assassination this year since January, when a US airstrike killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Officials in Iran see Israel-US coordination in the act.<\/p>\n
Fakhrizadeh, who headed research and innovation at Iran’s Defense Ministry, was attacked in Damavand county near Tehran on Friday. The assailants reportedly blew up a vehicle ahead of him and then fired at his vehicle, wounding him and others with him.<\/p>\n
The wounded were rushed to a nearby hospital, where Fakhrizadeh eventually succumbed to his injuries.<\/p>\n
The incident has drawn anger and outrage across Iran. On Friday evening, a large number of people gathered outside Rouhani\u2019s office in Tehran and demanded strong retaliation.<\/p>\n
The protestors chanted slogans like \u201cno compromise, no surrender, only fight,\u201d putting added pressure on the outgoing government days after it extended an olive branch to the new US administration.<\/p>\n
Many senior officials on Friday condemned the killing and spoke of \u201csevere revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gen. Mohammad Baqeri, Iran’s chief of army staff, accused \u201cterrorists\u201d affiliated with Israel of killing Fakhrizadeh, calling it a \u201cheavy blow\u201d to the country\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n
Baqeri, who had a long association with Fakhrizadeh, said \u201chard revenge\u201d awaits his killers.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, among the first to condemn the nuclear scientist’s killing, said Israel was \u201clikely to have been involved\u201d in it.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Defense Minister Amir Hatami said the killing of Fakhrizadeh shows \u201cthe depth of enemies\u2019 hated towards the Islamic republic.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said the country\u2019s first COVID-19 test kits were produced in a research center headed by the slain scientist, hailing him as a pioneer in the fight against the pandemic in Iran.<\/p>\n
meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei\u2019s top military advisor and a strong contender for next year\u2019s presidential election, said Israel is making \u201cevery effort to ignite an all-out war\u201d with Iran, adding that they will \u201cregret their act.\u201d<\/p>\n
Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, in a strongly worded statement, also said his country \u201cwill take revenge on the perpetrators\u201d of the act.<\/p>\n
Fakhrizadeh had long been on the radar of Israel\u2019s spy agency Mossad, according to informed sources. He had survived a few assassination bids in the past.<\/p>\n
In 2018, he was mentioned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a presentation on Iran\u2019s nuclear program, singling him out as a pioneer of the program.<\/p>\n
Fakhrizadeh is the latest in a series of attacks on prominent Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years, which Iran has always blamed on Israel.<\/p>\n
A front-page headline in a conservative Iranian newspaper on Saturday said: \u201cIf we don\u2019t strike [back], they will [continue to] strike us\u201d.<\/p>\n
The situation in the country is tense, and there seems to be disagreement on the issue of retaliation between Rouhani and top military officials.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile condemnation from Turkey on the assassination of Iran\u2019s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.<\/p>\n
According to Turkish Foreign Ministry “We regret that the Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh lost his life as a result of an armed attack in Tehran. We condemn this heinous murder and extend our condolences to the government of Iran and the family of the deceased,”.<\/p>\n
Turkey opposes all kinds of attempts to “disrupt peace and tranquility” in the region, and terrorism, regardless of the perpetrators or target, it said. “In this regard, we hope that those who committed the action will be unveiled and held accountable before justice, and we invite all parties to act with common sense and restraint, and to avoid attempts that will lead to an escalation in the region,”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tehran, Iran\u2019s president on Saturday joined other top officials in accusing Israel of killing the country\u2019s top nuclear scientist, an incident fanning the flames of tension in the region. Speaking a day after Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed by unidentified assailants on the outskirts of the capital Tehran, Hassan Rouhani said the killing will not affect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1470,1476],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17966,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17965\/revisions\/17966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}