‘Severe Revenge Awaits Those Who Killed Our Man’

Severe revenge awaits those who assassinated a top Iranian nuclear scientist outside the capital yesterday, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri has warned.

 “Terrorist groups and the leaders and the perpetrators of this cowardly attempt should know that severe revenge awaits them,” he said in a tweet reported by state news agency IRNA.

Bagheri called the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh “a bitter and heavy blow” and added “we assure (Iranians) that we will not rest until we have chased and punished” those involved.

Fakhrizadeh was “seriously wounded” when assailants targeted his car before being engaged in a gunfight with his security team, Iran’s defence ministry said in a statement.

It added that Fakhrizadeh, who headed the ministry’s reasearch and innovation organisation, was later “martyred” after medics failed to revive him.

Fakhrizadeh, once described by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, had been travelling in a car near Absard city in Tehran province’s eastern Damavand county.

A state television report on the assassination described him as one “of our country’s nuclear scientists” and said that Israel “had an old and deep enmity towards him”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said there were “serious indications of an Israeli role” in the scientist’s assassination, implying the severe revenge would be meted out to the Jewish nation.

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“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today,” Zarif wrote on Twitter.

Reports monitored by The Eagle showed that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, dubbed “the father of Iranian regime’s nuclear bomb,” died from his injuries in hospital after an armed group of assassins fired on his car.

The attack took place in Absard, east of capital Tehran, on Friday. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif confirmed Fakhrizadeh’s death and condemned the killing .