Israel blamed for scientist’s death

January 12, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

JERUSALEM

An Iranian scientist working at a key nuclear facility in that country was killed Wednesday in Tehran, the latest act in what appears to be a widening covert effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and senior official at the Natanz uranium-enrichment facility in central Iran, died when a magnetic bomb was attached to his car by two assailants on a motorcycle, according to Iran’s state news agency, IRNA. Roshan had “organizational links” to Iran’s nuclear agency, including a key role in aspects of the nuclear program, IRNA said.

Israel immediately was suspected of carrying out the attacks. Israeli officials would not confirm or deny whether their agents were involved, but a senior military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the subject offered his approval.

“Whoever carried out this attack, there is no doubt that it is positive, and should be seen as such,” the official said.

Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai offered a similar assessment on his official Facebook page: “I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I am definitely not shedding a tear.”

On Tuesday, Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that 2012 would be a “critical year” for Iran — in part because of “things that happen to it unnaturally.”

“Many bad things have been happening to Iran in the recent period,” said Mickey Segal, a former director of the Israeli military’s Iranian intelligence department. “Iran is in a situation where pressure on it is mounting, and the latest assassination joins the pressure that the Iranian regime is facing.”

Tehran accused Israel’s Mossad, the CIA and Britain’s MI5 spy agency of carrying out a covert campaign of “terrorism” against Iran.

Wednesday’s killing was the fourth assassination of a scientist involved in Iran’s nuclear program since early 2010. A fifth attempt against the current head of Iran’s atomic agency, Fereydoun Abbasi, failed in November 2010 when Abbasi and his wife narrowly escaped a bomb planted on their car.