Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday called for “punishing” those behind the assassination of a top nuclear scientist, adding that his work must be carried on.
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 defense scientist” and said he was “martyred by the hands of criminal and cruel mercenaries.”
“This unparalleled 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.
Iranian officials have pointed the finger at Israel for the killing. The country has long been suspected of taking out scientists amid tensions over Tehran’s rogue nuclear weapons program, which Fakhrizadeh oversaw.
Speaking to a meeting of his government’s coronavirus task force earlier Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel for the killing.
“We will respond to the assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh in a proper time,” Rouhani said.
He added: “The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap of the Zionists. They are thinking to create chaos.”
Top Iranian officials blame Israel for nuclear mastermind’s killing, vow revenge
Top Iranian officials on Friday pointed to Israel as the likely culprit in the assassination of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, with some vowing revenge for the death of the man Jerusalem has pointed to as the head of the country’s nuclear weapons program.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claimed there were “serious indications of [an] Israeli role” in the assassination.
“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice — with serious indications of Israeli role — shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators,” Zarif wrote on Twitter.
He also called on the international community to “end their shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror.”
Hossein Dehghan, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a presidential candidate in Iran’s 2021 election, issued a warning on Twitter.
“In the last days of their gambling ally’s political life, the Zionists seek to intensify and increase pressure on Iran to wage a full-blown war,” Dehghan wrote, appearing to refer to US President Donald Trump. “We will descend like lightning on the killers of this oppressed martyr and we will make them regret their actions!”
Iran’s military chief Mohammad Bagheri accused “the malicious Zionist entity of committing a brutal act.” He said Fakhrizadeh’s death was “a “major blow to the Iranian defense system.”
Hossein Salami, chief commander of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, tweeted: “Assassinating nuclear scientists is the most violent confrontation to prevent us from reaching modern science.”
Yadollah Javani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ political bureau, said that “the Zionists are behind many of these assassinations.”
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