Bomb Kills Tehran Professor
Target is seen as a longtime regime insider who veered toward supporting the opposition
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126328769321225939.html?mod=rss_Today’s_Most_Popular
A remote-controlled bomb killed a Tehran University physics professor near his home early Tuesday, in what Iranian authorities called an assassination backed by Western powers, including the U.S. and Israel.
Iran often accuses the two countries of meddling in its affairs.
The victim was identified as Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50 years old. Official news reports described Mr. Mohammadi as devout, loyal to the Islamic Republic and to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Before the June 12 presidential election, however, opposition Web sites published Prof. Mohammadi’s name among a list of 240 Tehran University teachers who backed opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. The election triggered more than six months of sometimes-violent street protests that have shaken the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Attacks on Iranian officials in remote provinces aren’t uncommon. But a bombing in Tehran, the capital, is rare. The target—seen as a longtime regime insider who appeared to veer toward supporting the opposition—immediately raised suspicion among colleagues and students that the attack was politically motivated.
“The reports about his assassination are suspicious. In the current circumstances in Iran, anything is possible. We are afraid this might be the start of retaliation against professors who criticize the government,” said a university colleague in a telephone interview.
Prof. Mohammadi’s membership in Iran’s broadly defined nuclear-science brain trust also raised questions about whether the attack was related to the country’s controversial nuclear program. Iran says it is pursuing a peaceful nuclear program, but Western officials allege it is seeking weapons.
Last year, the U.S. imposed a year-end deadline for progress in negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Washington has threatened fresh economic sanctions.
State media identified Mr. Mohammadi as a nuclear physicist. But he was best known for his work in mathematical physics and theoretical, high-energy physics, according to one colleague, who was also a former student.
That could lump his work into the broad category of nuclear science, but colleagues said it had little to do with practical, nuclear technology. A spokesman for Iran’s atomic agency, Ali Shirzadian, told the Associated Press that the professor had no link with the agency responsible for Iran’s nuclear program.
Still, Iranian officials seized upon his field of study as evidence of a foreign plot to slow down Tehran’s nuclear-energy program.
“Such terrorist moves and apparent [eliminations] of Iranian nuclear scientists will definitely cause no obstacle in the way of the country’s scientific and technological development,” state media quoted foreign-ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast saying. “Rather, they will speed up it.”
Tehran blamed the killing on an Iranian royalist opposition group it said operated under the direction of Israel and the U.S., according to state media.
A few hours after the incident, a statement posted on a Web site associated with the royalist group Tandor claimed responsibility. But hours later, many independent news agencies carried a counterstatement by the group, denying it was responsible for the attack and accusing Iran’s intelligence ministry of setting up a shadow Web site in the group’s name. It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the Web site or the conflicting statements.
A U.S. State Department spokesman told the AP the allegation of American involvement was “absurd.” An Israeli official declined to comment.
Iran has also accused the U.S. of complicity in an alleged kidnapping of another Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Washington and Saudi Arabia have dismissed any such plot.
Iranian authorities said Tuesday that a parked motorbike was booby-trapped with an explosive device that detonated near the professor’s home in northern Tehran. Pictures and video footage of the scene showed debris of a burned and mangled car and shards of glass blanketing the streets. Prof. Mohammadi’s body lay nearby, covered with a blanket.
Mr. Mohammadi was a member of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from 1980 to 2003, according to the official Iranian Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the IRGC. He was the head of the physics department at Tehran University and deputy director of the university’s college of sciences.
By Tuesday evening, the professor’s current and former students were posting comments and messages of condolence about him on an opposition blog called Dalan Sabz, Farsi for “the Green Path.”
A student named Ehsan wrote that Prof. Mohammadi was a vocal critic of Mr. Ahmadinejad and Iran’s ruling elite, and would often express those views in class. He was a staunch supporter of the opposition and encouraged students to attend protests, and would often march along side them, he added.
At one point during the last half year’s tumultuous street protests, his students told him that security forces were shooting at the crowd, another student wrote on the blog. “He told us ‘Young man, don’t be afraid of bullets. You have to stand up to this regime,’” according to the blog account.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com and Chip Cummins atchip.cummins@wsj.com
US, Israel accused of assassinating nuke scientist
By Middle East correspondent Anne Barker and wires
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/12/2790965.htm
Iran is blaming the United States and Israel for the assassination of a nuclear scientist who was killed in a bomb attack on a Tehran street.
Professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran university, died when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle was triggered by remote control outside his home in the northern Tehran neighbourhood of Qeytariyeh, state media said.
Iran’s foreign ministry said the killing had all the hallmarks of foreign involvement.
“One can see in preliminary investigations signs of evilness by the triangle of the Zionist regime [Israel], America and their mercenaries in Iran in this terrorist incident,” foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.
“Such terrorist acts and the physical elimination of the country’s nuclear scientists will certainly not stop the scientific and technological process but will speed it up,” he added.
Tehran’s chief prosecutor implicated US and Israeli intelligence services.
But the US says the allegation is absurd and Israel is refusing to comment.
The attack has raised questions as to whether the professor played a role in Iran’s nuclear program, making him a potential target.
But pro-reform groups claim he had publicly supported the opposition movement in Iran, suggesting other forces may have been responsible.
A witness said the explosion was a “strong blast breaking windows in neighbouring houses and cars”.
US denies involvement in Iran blast
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115995§ionid=3510203
The United States on Tuesday moved to dismiss any links to a bomb attack in the Iranian capital of Tehran that killed a nuclear scientist.
“Charges of US involvement are absurd,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry earlier accused the US and Israel of having played a role in the assassination of Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, who was killed by a booby-trapped motorbike blast.
“Primary investigations into the assassination revealed signs of the involvement of the Zionist regime [Israel], the US and their allies in Iran,” spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said.
The White House also reacted to the remarks.
“Those accusations are absurd. I saw that’s what the State Department put out today and it’s about right,” White House deputy spokesman Bill Burton said.
Meanwhile, a terrorist group, whose radio station broadcasts from the United States, took responsibility for the fatal attack.
The Iran Royal Association, an obscure monarchist group that seeks to reestablish the Pahlavi reign in Iran, announced in a statement that its “Tondar Commandos” were behind the assassination of Ali-Mohammadi.
The Iran Royal Association, headed by Foroud Fouladvand, is responsible for a deadly bombing in the southern city of Shiraz back in April 2008, in which 13 people were killed and hundreds were wounded.
Bomb Blast Kills Physics Professor in Tehran
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/middleeast/13iran.html
PARIS — A remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle killed an Iranian physics professor outside his home in northern Tehran on Tuesday, state media reported, blaming the United States and Israel for the attack.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. One state broadcaster, IRIB, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that “in the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents are visible in the terrorist act” against the scientist, Massoud AliMohammadi.
There was some dispute about his field of scientific specialization.
The English-language Press TV said he taught neutron physics at Tehran University, although it was not clear whether he was part of Iran’s contentious nuclear enrichment program.
The broadcaster called the professor a “staunch supporter of the Islamic Revolution” of 1979 that overthrew the Shah and initiated three decades of theocratic rule.
But two Iranian academics, who spoke in return for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said in telephone interviews that he was not a nuclear physicist and had specialized in particle and theoretical physics. The Web site of Tehran University lists him as a professor of elementary particle physics.
A spokesman for Iran’s atomic agency, Ali Shirzadian, told The Associated Press that Dr. AliMohammadi had no link with the agency responsible for Iran’s nuclear program.
Since flawed presidential elections last June, Iran has been gripped by its deepest political crisis since 1979, pitting supporters of the victorious President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadagainst opponents who call his regime illegitimate. News reports said Dr. AliMohammadi’s name had been on a list of 240 university teachers published on reformist Web sites before the election and identified as supporters of the main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi. But there was no formal confirmation from Tehran of his more recent political position.
After brutal crackdowns, the authorities late last year broadened efforts to stifle dissent to encompass the educational system, hinting that dissident professors would be purged. A number of hard-line clerics have called for the university humanities curriculums to be further Islamized. But it was not immediately known whether Tuesday’s killing was related to that dispute.
Analysts said the Iranian authorities seemed to have been quick to label Dr. AliMohammadi a loyalist, possibly as a precursor to renewed, harsh action against their opponents.
The reported bombing came just days after pro-government demonstrators shot at the armored car of the Iran’s most outspoken opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi, last Thursday, his Saham News Web site reported.
That attack appeared to reflect growing frustration that the crackdown in recent months had failed to stop the opposition from lashing out at the country’s leaders and staging intermittent protests that have brought tens of thousands of demonstrators into the streets.
Press TV reported on Tuesday that Dr. AliMohammadi, 50, was killed close to his home in the Qeytariyeh neighborhood of northern Tehran when a bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded near his car.
“Iran’s police and security bodies are investigating the terrorist case to identify those behind it,” Press TV reported and quoted Tehran’s prosecutor general, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, as saying no suspect had so far been arrested.
Iranian television showed cleaners sweeping up debris and hosing down the street after the blast shattered windows and smeared the sidewalk with blood and detritus. The video also showed what seemed to be a zippered body bag on a stretcher.
The Web site of Iran’s state television declared the bombing a “terrorist act by counterrevolutionaries and elements of arrogance,” a reference to the United States. Security forces are investigating, The A.P. quoted the report as saying.
The United States and western allies have been pressing Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program, which Tehran insists is solely for civilian purposes to produce electricity. But the West fears Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon that would threaten Israel and upset the regional power balance.
Last year, an Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia; Iran accused the United States of helping to kidnap him.
After Tuesday’s explosion, the government’s supporters and opponents traded accusations and claims that the scientist had supported their camp.
The royalist Takavaran Tondar group denied involvement in the blast. On its Web site, the group accused government agents of being behind the explosion. It said an announcement earlier on another Web site that seemed to be linked to it and claimed responsibility for the explosion had long been hacked by the authorities. The explosion came at a time of growing tension between Iran and its Western adversaries.
Speaking Monday at the start of a nine-day trip across the Pacific, Secretary of StateHillary Rodham Clinton said the United States and its allies were discussing financial sanctions that would appear to be aimed at the Revolutionary Guards and other political players in the country if diplomacy fails to overcome the growing tensions with Iran.
“It is clear that there is a relatively small group of decision makers inside Iran,” she said. “They are in both political and commercial relationships, and if we can create a sanctions track that targets those who actually make the decisions, we think that is a smarter way to do sanctions.”
But she added, “All that is yet to be decided upon.”
