IRAN’S IRGC VOWS TO AVENGE SLAIN NUCLEAR SCIENTIST FAKHRIZADEH

Sat 28 November 2020:

The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Hossein Salami vowed on Friday to avenge the assassination of prominent nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

“Severe revenge and punishment for the perpetrators of this crime is on the agenda,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Salami as saying.

Israel “designed and directed” Fakhrizadeh’s killing, Salami alleged. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it was not commenting on the attack on the Iranian nuclear scientist.

Fakhrizadeh, one of Iran’s most prominent nuclear scientists, succumbed to his injuries and died in a hospital, the defense ministry confirmed. He had been in charge of the ministry’s so-called “Research and Innovation Organization.”

He had long been described by Western, Israeli and Iranian exile foes of Iran’s clerical rulers as a leader of a covert atomic bomb program halted in 2003. Iran has long denied seeking to weaponize nuclear energy.

Chief of Staff of the Iranian armed forces Mohammad Bagheri also vowed that Iran would avenge the murder of Fakhrizadeh,

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also claimed on Friday there were “serious indications of (an) Israeli role” in the assassination of Fakhrizadeh.