Gunmen riding motorcycles fatally shot an Iranian scientist in front of his house in Tehran on Saturday, Iranian news agencies reported. It appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks that Iranian authorities have called an assassination campaign directed by Israeli, American and British intelligence agencies against the country’s nuclear program.
The scientist, Darioush Rezai-Nejad, 35, died, and his wife was wounded and taken to a hospital, the news reports said. They also gave varying descriptions of his expertise, with some describing him as an electronics specialist who worked with Iran’s Defense Ministry. It was uncertain what role, if any, he played in Iran’s nuclear program, which American experts believe is aimed at developing a weapons capacity. Iran denies that it is trying to build a nuclear bomb.
According to the semi-official ISNA news agency, Mr. Rezaeinejad was a doctoral student at Khajeh Nasroldeen Toosi University.
ISNA quoted Safarali Baratloo, political-security deputy for the Tehran’s governor’s office, as saying that whether Mr. Rezai-Nejad “is a nuclear scientist is currently under review and we are not certain.” In earlier reports, several Iranian news outlets identified him as being involved in Iran’s nuclear program but later hedged or backed away from that identification.
The shooting came amid Western concerns that Iran may be accelerating its production of nuclear materials to get closer to being able to make a weapon. The expanded effort is overseen by Fereydoon Abbasi, the nuclear physicist who runs the country’s Atomic Energy Organization.
On Nov. 29 Dr. Abbasi was driving to work when a motorcyclist approached and attached an explosive device to the door of his car. The physicist rushed away, pulling his wife with him, and they escaped with minor injuries.
But on the same day, Majid Shahriari, a colleague on the faculty of Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University, was killed in a similar attack, and his wife and driver were injured. Iranian authorities said Professor Shahriari had managed a major nuclear project.
via Iranian Scientist Rezai-Nejad Gunned Down at Home – NYTimes.com.