Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan was not the first Iranian nuclear scientist to be killed like this. In November 2010, not very far from the scene of today's assassination there were two identical attacks, in which a motorcycle drew up alongside the victim's car while it was in traffic and the riders stuck a magnetic bomb on the door. The bombs detonated as the assassins rode off.
One of those bombs killed Majid Shahriari, a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran who was working on research projects with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). The other slightly wounded Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the subject of UN sanctions and widely suspected in the West of involvement in nuclear weapon design.
In a reflection of his importance in the Iranian programme, Abbasi-Davani was made the head of the AEOI a few months later. Both he and Shahriari were big fish, like the first victim of the assassination campaign, a senior physicist, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, killed in January 2010 when a bomb on a parked motorcycle exploded as he walked to his car.
Ahmadi-Roshan, who was killed in today's blast, is reported to have held the position of deputy director at the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, one of the most controversial parts of the programme. Iran is the subject of a string of UN Security Council resolutions and four sets of sanctions calling for it to suspend enrichment.
Not all the victims have been so senior. In July last year, gunmen on motorbikes shot dead July 2011, Darioush Rezaeinejad, an electronics student who was according to some accounts working on high-voltage switches, a component of nuclear weapons among other things.
The killers are clearly using loose criteria in choosing their victims. Any connection to any part of the nuclear programme seems to be enough to be selected as a target of opportunity.
Iranian officials have been quick to blame Israel, and the Israelis have not been going out of their way to avoid suspicion. On Tuesday, the head of the Israeli Defence Force, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a "critical year" for Iran in which it would be subject to "unnatural" events.
The Israeli military establishment has a motive to claim successes in the covert war on Iran, because they are under political pressure to start an overt one. The generals, however, know that Israeli air strikes would unleash a war without accomplishing their goal of destroying the Iranian nuclear programme.
A covert war, based on assassinations and sabotage, may appear a better alternative. Individual killings may not seriously hinder a large, wide-ranging programme, but they would certainly deter young Iranians from taking that line of work.
But such a campaign is not without huge risks for the region. The regime in Iran has clearly tried to hold its nerve, avoiding overt reprisals that might in turn provoke a military response. But elements of the establishment do seem to be lashing out in frustration.
Last October's bomb plot against the Saudi ambassador and Israeli diplomats in Washington, alleged to be the work of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was both amateurish and extremely reckless. If Americans had been killed in the Georgetown restaurant that was supposedly the target, the Obama administration would have been obliged to respond militarily.
Likewise, the storming of the British embassy, on the anniversary of Shahriari's assassination, appeared to have gone much further than the leadership had intended, and significantly deepened Tehran's isolation.
"The old guys at the top are losing control of the situation," a senior western diplomat observed, the day before this latest killing. The fragmentation of the regime will have unpredictable, and possibly very violent outcomes. The pressure of sanctions is building. There is a lot of military hardware in the Gulf right now, some of belonging to the regularly Iranian navy and some to the Revolutionary Guards, who have their own agenda. Whoever is killing Iran's scientists is clearly willing to risk catastrophic consequences that could engulf the region.
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11 January 2012 11:29AM
How significant is the meeting, I think this week, in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1? There has been very little talk about it. Has it been hastily arranged in response to the upping of the ante by both sides lately or has it been scheduled for a while?
11 January 2012 11:29AM
Hmmm, who could it BE? I can't think. *Scratches head*
Nope I've got nothing, anyone got a guess guess who's killing these scientists? Can we narrow it down?
I Should Reckon An Easy List to reduce.
11 January 2012 11:33AM
I would also think that there is an issue with the fact that Iran will still want to push ahead with its programme whether or not there are suitable people to oversee & manage it. This could lead to a catastrophic nuclear disaster.
11 January 2012 11:39AM
Whoever did this is, by anyone's definition, a terrorist.
11 January 2012 11:41AM
Of course, no mention of the phrase targeted assassination, which I believe is illegal under international law, regardless of who perpetrated the act.
11 January 2012 11:42AM
Scratch that first comment Julian - I was reading the wrong scientist assassination piece. There are no scheduled talks it seems - not yet anyway.
11 January 2012 11:46AM
This latest terrorist bombing by the US/UK/Israel axis should really be enough to put them all on the US regime's own list of state sponsors of terror.
But the official hate propaganda campaign against Iran has gone so far that even outright murder is no longer considered a big deal. It doesn't even get called murder when the empire does it, just as torture isn't torture when performed by US officials.
There is basically no outrage whatever over this gruesome official crime in the despicably servile and morally bankrupt Western media; the only debate is over whether the tactic is expedient or inexpedient.
11 January 2012 11:54AM
Anybody who wants to read an insider account of the organisation being held most likely to be committing these atrocities, I suggest By Way of Deception - An Insider Account of Mossad by Victor Ostrovosky, and his follow-up work The Other Side of Deception.
He makes no bones they murder and kill indiscriminately. Remember that assassination using foreign passports? Full of incidents like that - but written more than a decade before that hit.
He also describes in detail some of the murders they have committed in Europe too, mainly Muslims they didn't like any any whites they think might be witnesses.
11 January 2012 12:00PM
Let's see who wants the Iranian nuclear program to fail, beyond the usual suspects shall we. There's also Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey and way beyond. There a strong basic common denomination of fear all around Iran.
11 January 2012 12:04PM
Some elements in the Isreali government or security services are clearly out of control. Assassinations are terrorist acts.
11 January 2012 12:09PM
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11 January 2012 12:10PM
someone is going out of their way to convince iran to stop what their doing .
if their is a war iran will lose . the air war would be over in about 30 min-2 hours(janes defence ).
iran would have lost or used most of their missles . just send in comandos to take out the nuke sites from the inside out . the airforce will rule the skys .
dont forget israel took out the syrian reactor , israel shut down all syrian radar, had troops on the groud in syria to remove parts from the syrian reactor before blowing it up. what could syria do , nota
11 January 2012 12:18PM
Not only 'morally' backrupt.
11 January 2012 12:26PM
One has to wonder whether the Obama Administration is arming its allies in the Gulf region to defend themselves and offer support should conflict break out with Iran. This would maintain the United States position in the Persian Gulf by proxy at far lower cost (and far higher risk). The fact that China is very heavily involved in oil and gas infrastructure investment in Iran is a complicating factor as shown here:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2011/12/iran-oil-giant.html
With China having a vested interest in the country, the outcome could prove most interesting, particularly as the scarcity of oil becomes an issue in the coming decades.
11 January 2012 12:29PM
So usini, clearly, you will be providing some hard evidence to support that statement?
Btw, I believe there is every chance that Israel, along with the US, UK and France are covertly sabotaging the Iranian weapons programme - but I have no hard evidence to support this.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is clearly out of control, which is why it is the most sanctioned state on the planet. The Iranian regime seems to be entering its death throes - let's hope so!
11 January 2012 12:30PM
State terrorism perpetrated by USA and Israel. It baffles me how these assassinations are portrayed as an obstacle put in order to impede Iran's nuclear programme.
It just goes to show that bias of the media, politicians, and UN when it comes to countries which do not agree with us (i.e. UK, USA and Israel) and want to pursue their goals. Isn't it prejudice at extreme to label Iran and discredit it as a country who is not to be trusted with WMD just because they have a different culture than ours or just because theu are islamists, a country who has never started a war since ancient times?
Isn't it preposterous to propagate that Israel is right to have WMDs because they are a democracy? What sort of democracy annihilates a country and wipes it off the map of the world? What sort of democracy kills and bombs innocent civilians, women and children, using sophisticated illegal weaponry therefore breaking every international law in the process? What sort of democracy allows human prisons on a large scale like Gaza? What sort of democracy operates target assassinations, which are illegal under international law, in foreign lands? What sort of democracy endorses and commits crystal clear state terrorism?
11 January 2012 12:32PM
"I would argue that if the intent of the person being assassinated is genocide it is morally justifiable."
So killing Reagan, Bush, Blair etc would have been fine in your book?
11 January 2012 12:34PM
But you clearly think that this has got Mossad's fingerprints all over it as well as I do, which is why you are trying to justify it.
Any state which sends assassins into another country to murder people is carrying out illegal acts and should be sanctioned for it.
11 January 2012 12:36PM
so now killing can be justified. i wonder how these people sleep at night. this is just pure evil
11 January 2012 12:39PM
Was the scientist who was killed a genocidal maniac then, or just an ordinary guy paid to do a job?
Have we got proof he was working on developing nuclear weapons, and proof that if he was that these weapons would actually be used to commit genocide?
11 January 2012 12:43PM
Let's get some facts straight here, shall we?
Iran is developing nuclear weapons, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and has threatened a member state of the United Nations saying it would wipe Israel off the map, and has launched multiple attacks against Israel using its proxy armies Hamas, and Hizbullah.
Iran is governed by a theocratic regime of fanatic ayatollahs and mullahs who teach their people that a Moslem caliphate will be established from Europe to Asia and beyond, and that it will be achieved through jihad (holy war), and that the reward of devout Moslems for killing infidels will come in the next world (not this one). These are the people that want to get their hands on nuclear weapons.
Because of its nuclear ambitions, its belligerent threats, its support for terrorism, and its attacks on Israel, Iran is currently under some of the stiffest International sanctions ever imposed by the United Nations, and has been warned by members of the international community that if it continues with its aggressive activity, it will risk military action to stop it.
There are several Iranian groups fighting against the ayatollah regime in Iran, and they have been involved in many acts of sabotage.
It is unknown at this time who actually committed the latest assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist, and it may well be the US, Britain, or Israel. But it might also be one of the Iranian insurgent groups or Sunni Iraqis. Any accusations at this time can be no more than speculation.
If anyone is looking for examples of acts of meaningless terror involving Iran, one example would be the senseless bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires by Iran.
Neither, the US, Britain, or Israel is eager to get involved in military action against Iran. That why sanctions have been repeatedly used to try to convince the ayatollah regime to back off. But if sanctions don't work, then the mullahs and ayatollahs of Iran must not be permitted to get their hands on nuclear weapons.
11 January 2012 12:49PM
Wrong wrong wrong.
I'm not saying the end never justifies the means, and the thought of a nuclear-armed Iran is terrifying, but these are civilian scientists. Killing them is murder, state-sponsored systematic killing of them - if that's what this is - is an act of terrorism. Even if they're working on something terrifying for a reprehensible regime, comparing civilian scientists to Hitler or Pol Pot is just deranged. You're undermining your own argument.
11 January 2012 12:50PM
And in order to do that assassinations would be justified?
11 January 2012 12:50PM
Julian Borger's mention of the purported Iranian Mission Impossible attack on the Saudi ambassador in Washington was oddly missing the detail that no one believes there was even the remotest shred of truth to it. The US government and media (and the Saudis) have noticeably gone deadly silent about it, quite remarkable seeing how any vaguely plausible evidence would have already have been leaked and used at the UN. It is a Yellowcake from Niger only even more implausible.
On the issue of the murder of another Iranian scientist sponsored by Israel we should all nervously reflect on the fact that a terrorist regime in the middle east already has nuclear weapons. Israeli containment is going to be a major headache for Europe, especially with the rising numbers of the ultra-religious.
What exactly are we going to do when Israel is desperate for resources, run by a coalition of Shas and some essentially fascist party like Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu and has German subs (thanks Angela) equipped with nuclear weapons that could potentially threaten Europe if we get in the way of their expansionist plans? These are crazy, desperate, racist, nuclear armed religious zealots who talk quite seriously of the Samson option if things do not go their way. Needless to say demographics and the onset of democracy in the wider middle east guarantees things will not go their way.
It is a nightmare which we need to confront and plan for but our US "allies" are going to make that very complicated - they are safely out of range.
11 January 2012 12:51PM
What a stupid comment. A nuclear scientist is not comparable to Hitler or Pol Pot. Nor is his intent likely to be genocide.
11 January 2012 12:52PM
If we are to assume that it is a US/Israel covert operation - and of course there is absolutely no proof, just suspicion - then one has to ask what are the benefits of such actions as opposed to overt action and which carries the greater risk - assuming of course that no action is the highest risk (which it may or may not be).
Iran currently has placed her nuclear reprocessing plants deep underground and any attempt to hit them will be fraught with problems, with no guarantee of success and a strong risk of a response which would be unpredictable (although no doubt all scenarios have been considered). Such overt action should, and no doubt will, be a last resort.
In the interim it makes sense to reduce the likelihood of having to apply the 'last resort' option, be it with cyber attacks, targetted assassinations, economic sanctions, support for opposition forces within the country or any other way which destabilises the regime and hinders their nuclear progress.
There will no doubt be plenty of 'naifs' who will rush to the defence of the Iranian regime ignoring its fundamentally barbaric nature and defend its right to possess nuclear weapons (or even more ridiculously deny Iran's intent to produce such weapons). Of course they may feel vindicated, venting their spleen on such blogs as this but the destabilisation of the Iranian regime will continue unabated. Sadly, ordinary Iranians will get caught up in it all, but that is the way it always has been.
11 January 2012 12:57PM
I don't see any reason for doubting, as some people here seem to do, that either Isael or the US bears the responsibility for this (or maybe both together).
Moreover, I don't see any reason to doubt that the purpose is to foment a war.
However, I'm afraid neither of these parties has any broad understanding of what the consequences of such a war would be. Iran is far better prepared, as are its potential allies, for such a war than either Iraq or Afghanistan were. Even public opinion in the U.S. and Israel is not wholly in support of such a war.
The US and/or Israel could gain air superiority very quickly, but do they really think that is all that is necessary to win a war? This war, which now appears almost certain, will be a disaster for both the U.S. and Israel.
11 January 2012 12:57PM
Certainly not indiscriminately, and certainly not of innocent civilians. But of nuclear technicians and specialists trying to build nuclear bombs so their fanatic masters can "wipe Israel off the map" ? What do you think...?
11 January 2012 12:58PM
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11 January 2012 1:01PM
In the interim it makes sense to reduce the likelihood of having to apply the 'last resort' option, be it with cyber attacks, -illegal
targetted assassinations,- illegal and terrorism
economic sanctions, -legal
support for opposition forces within the country - legal, but liable to be used by the regime as an excuse to crack down on opposition-
Anybody who actually cared for Iran and its people would know that the last would be disastrous.
11 January 2012 1:02PM
Well I suppose Israel does have a history of terrorism.
11 January 2012 1:05PM
So then Iran would be fully justified in targeting Israel's nuclear technicians and specialists? You wouldn't object if they started down that path?
Or is that somehow totally different because Israel are somehow the "good guys" (despite being the only ones actually carrying out these murders).
11 January 2012 1:06PM
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11 January 2012 1:06PM
No. Not justified.
By that paranoid logic, any intelligent/educated Iranian, the fruits of whose intelligence/ecucation might be deemed a threat (for whatever reason) by the wholly unnacountable Mossad/CIA/MI6 is a fair target for assasination.
11 January 2012 1:07PM
If Israel doesn't want its neighbiours to have nuclear weapons, it could get rid of its own first. Stories of fundamentalism emerging from Israel sound nearly as bad as the mad mullahs of Iran.
Murder is murder, and wrong. And I'm glad someone else mentioned the ludicrous "plot" to murder a diplomat. But even if there was any truth in it, it must be ok, if its ok to murder Iranians.
11 January 2012 1:08PM
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11 January 2012 1:08PM
@VoiceOfIsrael
On what authority can you, an individual, claim to be the voice of Israel, a nation-state?
11 January 2012 1:09PM
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11 January 2012 1:10PM
Other than its response to Iran's threats against Israel, Israel has never threatened Iran in any way.
11 January 2012 1:10PM
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11 January 2012 1:11PM
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11 January 2012 1:11PM
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11 January 2012 1:14PM
This attack seems like a steadily increasing war of attrition against the Iranian state until it eventually responds with retaliation against the perpotrators which in turn will give them the ultimate excuse to send in the big guns, and when that happens may God help us all!
11 January 2012 1:18PM
If Israel is behind this it risks bringing on the very conflict it fears. Amazing this isn't the main news item of the day. Surely the West's best hope with Iran is that the Iranian people themselves overthrow their hideous leadership. Murders of Iranian scientists will strengthen the hand of the hardliners. Totallly the wrong policy. Don't get me wrong... the nuclear developments are a threat given the nature of leadership in Iran, but the 'stop them at all costs' policy is more dangerous than just letting it happen.
11 January 2012 1:19PM
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11 January 2012 1:19PM
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11 January 2012 1:25PM
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11 January 2012 1:28PM
Okay.
Is Iranian involvement a fact or an allegation?
From the article you link:
"Facts", indeed.
11 January 2012 1:28PM
Congratulations Borger on repeating the "killing the Saudi ambassador" lie again.
No evidence, not based in realitty, not rational but nevertheless repeated like it was true.
Congratulations on the propaganda. Par for the course for the Guardian really.
11 January 2012 1:29PM
Corrected.