Sunday, July 24, 2011

Nuclear Scientist Assassinated in Tehran

Iran on Sunday blamed the US and Israel for the killing of an Iranian scientist. Darioush Rezaienejad, 35, a university professor, was shot dead by gunmen in eastern Tehran on Saturday.

“The terrorist action by American and the Zionist regime (Israel) yesterday is another example of the level of their animosity against Iran," said Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani in a speech broadcast live on state TV [IRIB, 24 July].

Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday that Rezaienejad was a physics professor with specialty in neutron physics. ISNA said that the slain professor was an expert with link to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). Meanwhile, Fars News Agency reported that Rezaienejad was also associated with the defense ministry. Based on the reactions by Iranian officials, including Speaker Larijani, and the reports by the Iranian news agencies, the late professor apparently had a sensitive position within the country’s nuclear and defense establishment.

Rezaienejad was killed in front of his house and there are reports that his wife was also injured during the attack.

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in recent years. Last November, Majid Shahriari was killed in Tehran when men on motorcycles attached a bomb to his car. The current AEOI director, Fereydoon Abbasi, survived a similar assassination attempt on the same day. Another top Iranian nuclear scientist, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, was killed in a bomb blast in January 2010.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The poor dead was a student in Germany.
The nuclear scientists are unreachable but they don't give a toss about collatoral damages... bloody murderes.

I hope those responsible will have their genitals blown off... bastards.

Bless Iran and its people

Nader Uskowi said...

To those of you who have closely followed the report of Rezaienejad’s assassination, you may have noticed that Press TV on Sunday denied the reports the slain person was a university professor with links to the country’s nuclear and defense agencies. Press TV, quoting senior officials, said the original reports by Iranian news agencies, including semi-official Fars News Agency, were mistaken and that the slain person was a student of electronics in a Tehran university.

Uskowi on Iran carried that update. But minutes later, Press TV published Speaker Larijani’s speech broadcast live by Iran’s state TV, condemning the assassination of the nuclear physicist and linking it to US and Israel. Press TV never explained its earlier denial! We had to retract out update. This is the second major blunder by state-owned Press TV in less than a week. Earlier it had reported that IRGC had shot down a US drone over Fordo, then it published an IRGC report denying the incident, but it did not explain why it reported the incident in details without having confirmed it with IRGC. Reports from Iranian news agencies are increasingly becoming unreliable or at least imprecise.

Anonymous said...

Dear Nader,

The dead is not a N. Scientist but that does not mean one should not use the political capital thrown at Iran.

Bashing the UK and Israel for killing Iranians on the streets.

Iran is playing around with Information... just like the Murdoch industry.

I Guess a bit of delay in reflection is better now.

The assassins should not exactly know if they have succeded or not...do u understand me ?

Rd said...

Condolences to Mr. Rezaienejad’s family...

I wonder if they have any monitoring cameras' around the homes and work environments of these individuals? even on their cars.. given these continued attempts, perhaps the security people can provide better protection.

reader said...

UN and IAEA must bear some responsibility for providing a pretext for international criminals and terrorists to assassinate ordinary and probably non-political Iranian scientists, who just happened to be in this profession for a living.

Our law enforcement seems too preoccupied with enforcing dress code and pulling down satellite dishes than protecting these valued citizens.

Paul said...

He was a student.

http://isna.ir/ISNA/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1812601&Lang=P

Nader Uskowi said...

Anon 10:19/8:37 AM,

Within literally minutes of the assassination, Mehr news agency identified Rezaienejad his specialty, his university affiliation, and his IAEO link. ISNA, within an hour, reported similar info. Fars, the semi-official news agency, added that Rezaienejad was also affiliated with the defense department. Then on Sunday, the speaker of Majlis went on live TV to accuse Israel and US and link Rezaienejad to defense department. And why do you insist the dead was not a nuclear scientist and/or was a student in Germany, it’s not clear.

Back to my comment, it was about the lousy job these days by Press TV. I do not classify them as disinformation or information operations by a government controlled media, but the apparent loss of journalistic editorship at the station, with examples of this news and the drone over Fordo.

Anonymous said...

There seems to be still confusion whether the slain person was a student or a Nuclear Scientist.

Payvand news in http://www.payvand.com/news/11/jul/1238.html

states that this person was a unmiversity student and the picture shown refers to him as Daneshjouye shahid.


There is a degree of confusion on who exactly was murdered. The fact was that there was an assasination and whether the person killed was related to nuclear programs in unclear. It is clear that the murdered person lived in Tehran.

On a related matter, I agree that the combined force of Police and baseej should look after these people as opposed to going after trivia. In most these cases motorbikes are used and I guess with the increasing number of cameras in the roads, it should be possible to identify the killers.

There is also another dimension to these killings that the stat itself uses powerful motorbikes to assasinate the so called traitors and undesirables. It is feasible that this was a sponsorded assanination by the security apparatus.

There are so many interested factions in Iran that it is impossible to say who actually carried out the crime. All we hear that the people who committed similar crimes have been identified and punished! What doe that supposed to mean?

Anonymous said...

Official Iran may not be able to properly identify who it was that was murdered, but it has somehow no difficulty decided who it was that did the killing,

The por guy and his wife were probably shot by that US drone that didn't get shot down.

Anonymous said...

This could also be the work of MKO.

Anonymous said...

MKO has no muscles
either Jonde ollagh or Israel's Pejak