Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday called for the “punishing” of those behind the assassination of a top nuclear scientist, adding that his work must be carried forwards.
He called for “following up on this crime and certainly punishing the perpetrators and those responsible, and … continuing the scientific and technical efforts of this martyr in all of the fields he was working in,” according to a statement on the supreme leader’s official website.
Khamenei called Mohsen Fakhrizadeh a “prestigious nuclear and defence scientist” and said he was “martyred by the hands of criminal and cruel mercenaries”.
“This unparallelled scientist gave his dear and valuable life to God because of his great and lasting scientific efforts, and the high prize of martyrdom is his divine reward,” he added.
Fakhrizadeh was “martyred” after being seriously wounded when assailants targeted his car and engaged in a gunfight with his bodyguards outside the capital Tehran on Friday, according to Iran’s defence ministry.
The ministry said that the scientist, who headed its reasearch and innovation organisation, died after medics failed to revive him.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani had earlier accused Iran’s arch-foe Israel of acting as a “mercenary” for the US and seeking to create chaos by carrying out the assassination.
“The nation of Iran is smarter than to fall in the trap of the conspiracy set by the Zionists. They are thinking of creating chaos, but they should know that we have read their hands and they will not succeed,” Rouhani said in televised remarks.
He vowed that Iran will not “leave this criminal act unanswered” and will retaliate “in due time.”
Rouhani accuses ‘mercenary’ Israel of killing top Iran scientist
Also Iran’s president has accused Israel of killing a high-ranking Iranian nuclear physicist long suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb programme, state TV reported.
“Once again, the evil hands of global arrogance were stained with the blood of the mercenary usurper Zionist regime,” President Hassan Rouhani said in a statement, according to the state TV report on Saturday.
“The assassination of martyr [Mohsen] Fakhrizadeh shows our enemies’ despair and the depth of their hatred … His martyrdom will not slow down our achievements.”
Iran’s religious and military rulers have threatened revenge for Friday’s killing of nuclear scientist Fakhrizadeh, who Iranian media said died in hospital after attackers gunned him down in his car in Ab-Sard, a suburb in eastern Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif said there was evidence pointing to the involvement of Israel in the assassination, but it was unclear who exactly conducted the hit.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Majid Takht Ravanchi, wrote in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council on Friday that several top Iranian scientists had been killed in “terrorist attacks” over the last decade, and said “certain foreign quarters” were responsible.
He called the “cowardly” assassination of Fakhrizadeh an attempt to “wreak havoc” on the region and disrupt Iran’s development in the fields of science and technology.
Supporting, Germany has called for calm after the assassination which Tehran has blamed on Israel. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has accused arch-foe Israel of acting as a “mercenary” for the US and seeking to create chaos.
Some citizens have also dragged the united states ‘heads’ directly into it. Photos of them burning a photo of Donald Trump and Joe Biden has gone viral.
One on Twitter said –
A couple of weeks ago Trump suggested Nuking Irans Nuclear facility but was advised against it.
– @Buccplumber
Then Pompeo visits Israel.
Then Iranian head Nuclear scientist is assassinated.
All coincidence of course.
