'Car bomb kills nuclear scientist near Tehran'
By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF
LAST UPDATED: 01/11/2012 08:33
Iranian media: University prof. dies when bomb on his car explodes; local official blames Israel for the attack.
Iranian hangs banner for late prof., Tehran Uni. Photo: Reuters
A
university professor and department head of a uranium enrichment facility was killed by a bomb placed on his car by a
motorcyclist in Tehran on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, in an
incident that looked similar to attacks on nuclear scientists in the
city more than one year ago.
The semi-official FARS news agency
cited witnesses as saying a motorcyclist stuck a bomb on the side of the
car which then exploded, killing one and injuring two people inside. Witnesses told Reuters one other pedestrian was killed in the bombing.
FARS identified the victim as Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan. State-run Press TV
said he was a university professor.
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According
to the FARS report, Roshan, 32, was a graduate of an "oil industry
university," and headed a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment
facility in the Isfahan province in central Iran.
A local official likened the attack to previous ones against Iranian scientists, and implicated Israel in the bombing.
"The
bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for
the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the Zionists
(Israelis)" FARS quoted Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying.Witnesses
told Reuters they saw two people on the motorbike stick the bomb to the
car. As well as the person killed in the car, a pedestrian was also
killed by the blast. Another person in the car was gravely injured, they
said.
In August 2011, an
Iranian man pleaded guilty to the murder of a scientist that
prosecutors said was an assassination ordered by Israel to halt Tehran's
race for nuclear technology.
Majid Jamali-Fashi, a man who
looked in his mid-20s, appeared in court to confess the murder of
Massoud Ali-Mohammadi in January 2010, the first of several attacks on
scientists which Iran has blamed on foreign agents, state television
said.
An
Iranian physicist was shot dead by a motorcyclist in Tehran in July, one
of four Iranian scientists to die in mysterious but violent
circumstances since 2007.
Iran's student news agency ISNA quoted an unnamed police official as
saying that man was a nuclear scientist.
ISNA named the scientist
as Darioush Rezaie, 35, a university teacher who held a PhD in physics.
It was not clear whether he was part of Iran's nuclear enrichment
program. Enriched uranium can be used for civilian nuclear purposes, but
also to build atomic bombs.
The United States and Israel have
both denied involvement in any of the deaths, despite both countries'
disapproval of Iranian nuclear ambitions, and threats to take action
should Tehran refuse to cease nuclear development.