Bomb Kills Iranian Nuclear Scientist

[Jan Klimkowski]

Just heard Gordon Thomas (yes - that Gordon Thomas, introduced as the author of "Gideon's Spies" and someone with excellent contacts with intelligence agencies) interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live.

GT said openly and forcefully, despite the interviewer trying to introduce doubt, that this was a Mossad hit using a still secret magnetic explosive, and strongly implying that Mossad would not stop until every Iranian nuclear scientist on their list was dead.

This was effectively a puff piece for assassination sanctioned by Israel and the west.

[Magda Hassan]

Iran suspects UN had role in nuke scientist murder

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Published: 20 January, 2012, 14:49




Worshippers carry portraits of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan during his funeral on January, 13 (Reuters / Morteza Nikoubazl)

TRENDS: Israel vs Iran Iran tension
TAGS: Crime, Scandal, UN, Politics, Terrorism, Law, Iran, USA, Israel, Blast

Iran is suspicious that UN agencies may have given away information which aided the murder of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan on January 11.
Iranian deputy UN ambassador Eshagh Al Habib told the UN Security Council on Thursday that there was "high suspicion" that, in order to prepare the murder, terrorist circles used intelligence obtained from UN bodies. According to him, this included interviews with Iranian nuclear scientists carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the sanction list of the Security Council, Reuters news agency reports.
Officials observed that prior to the murder, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan had talked to IAEA inspectors, a fact which "indicates that these UN agencies may have played a role in leaking information on Iran's nuclear facilities and scientists."

Although the UN Security Council's list of sanctioned individuals does not include Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, it does bear the name of Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani, who was wounded in a Tehran car bomb attack in November, 2010.

Eshagh Al Habib accused the United Nations of failing to guarantee the confidentiality of the information it obtains about the Iranian nuclear program and nuclear scientists. UN spokesman Martin Nesirky says he is currently investigating the claims.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, who was overseeing Iran's uranium enrichment program, is one of five Iranian nuclear specialists killed in the last two years. He was murdered by one or more motorbike hit men who allegedly planted a magnetic bomb on his car or, alternatively, dropped a bomb inside the car during the morning rush hour. Iran accused American and Israeli intelligence of carrying out the murder a charge both countries deny.

The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear activities. Western countries believe Iran's nuclear program has military dimensions. However Tehran maintains it is peaceful, and the IAEA has failed to produce any evidence of concrete plans to develop a nuclear arsenal.

*Iran should review relations with IAEA' MP

While Eshagh Al Habib was mild and focused in his evaluation of the UN's possible role in the murder of the Iranian nuclear scientist, a senior member of Iran's Majlis, Zohreh Elahian, was far more outspoken.

The member of Iran's Majlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy announced on Thursday that it had been proven that IAEA inspectors were transferring Iran's sensitive data to the United States and Israel, Iran's television network Press TV reports. The legislator added that Iran should review the way it interacts with the agency and its inspectors as the current approach was unacceptable.

Zohreh Elahian said that foreign intelligence agencies America's CIA, Israel's Mossad and the British MI6 were responsible for the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists and added that Iran would pursue such terror acts through legal and international bodies.

[Magda Hassan]

Obama let the cat out of the bag now. Obviously related to the new rapproachment with Iran which Israel has been trying to throw a spanner into.

Obama pushes Israel to stop assassinations of Iran nuclear scientists report

Published time: March 02, 2014 12:30 Get short URL

A policeman walks past the car belonging to Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan at a blast site outside a university in northern Tehran January 11, 2012. (Reuters/IIPA/Sajad Safari)








President Barack Obama is pressuring Israel to stop carrying out assassinations of top nuclear scientists in Iran as the Islamic Republic continues its negotiations with world powers over its uranium enrichment program, according to a new book.
Apart from pressure from Washington that Israel give up the assassination program, sources close to Israel's intelligence agencies told CBS News's Dan Raviv that Mossad itself viewed the campaign as too dangerous to continue. Raviv, who was updating a book he co-wrote about the history of Israel's intelligence agencies, said the pressure form the Obama administration was "more than a hint."
Mossad itself was apparently undergoing a sea change regarding the program. Fearing their best combatants' Israel's term for its most accomplished spies could be captured and hanged, the agency is reportedly set to shift its focus to other activities. According to security sources, Netanyahu ordered the intelligence agency to focus its efforts on proving the Islamic Republic is cheating on a landmark preliminary agreement made with six world powers in November to curtail its uranium enrichment program in return for limited sanctions relief.
At least five Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed since 2007, with men on motorcycles sticking magnetically attachable bombs to their victims' cars. The head of the country's ballistic missile program was also killed, while in October Mojtaba Ahmadi, who served as commander of the Cyber War Headquarters, was found shot dead. No Israeli national has ever been arrested in collusion with the targeted assassination program, which is reportedly intended to thwart advances in Iran's nuclear program and dissuade Iran's best and brightest from working in the sphere.
The killing of Ahmadi was widely viewed as an attempt to derail nuclear negotiations between Tehran and the P5+1 the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.
Israel has never publically claimed responsibility for the attacks.
In 2012, however, an NBC News report concluded that "deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel's secret service."
The report cited two senior Obama administration officials as confirming that Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) is behind the killings, though the officials denied the US played any role in the program.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, told NBC that Mossad worked through the MEK because "Israel does not have direct access to our society. [The MEK], being Iranian and being part of Iranian society, they have … a good number of places... to get into touch with people."
The MEK has denied colluding with Israel, though Israeli officials have confirmed links between MEK and Israeli intelligence.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told defense officials on Saturday the country had given up its nuclear program because owning weapons of mass destruction is a sin.
"Even if there were no NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty) or other treaties, our belief, our faith, our religion and principles tell us not to seek weapons of mass destruction," Rouhani said.
In November, Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium beyond 20 percent and to dilute its already enriched stockpiles in return for an estimated $7 billion in sanctions relief. That deal came into effect January 20.
Following the latest round of Iran nuclear talks in Vienna on February 20, Iran and the P5+1 agreed to a framework on which to strike a final agreement within the coming months. Both sides have agreed to hold an additional round of talks in Vienna later this month.

http://rt.com/news/iran-obama-assassinat...tists-443/

[Magda Hassan]

Hezbollah blames Israel in death of 5 nuclear technicians in Syria

By Mitchell Prothero
McClatchy Washington BureauNovember 10, 2014
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IRBIL, Iraq The deaths of five nuclear scientists Sunday in an ambush outside Damascus has raised anew suspicions about whether Israel is conducting an assassination campaign intended to blunt Iran's nuclear ambitions.
At least one of the men was an Iranian nuclear technician, according to Syrian state television, members of the internal security wing of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence in that country.
Rami Abdurrahman, the observatory's director, described the dead as "five nuclear engineers" in a Facebook post and said they worked at a scientific research center "near the neighborhood of Barzeh, northern Damascus." The Britain-based observatory, which works with a network of informants in Syria, has a reputation for accurate reports on events there.
Syrian government officials, speaking to government-friendly television stations, later confirmed that at least one of the men was an Iranian "scientific consultant," but they released no other details on the nationalities of the other four men killed.
Both Iran and North Korea have provided Syria with technical nuclear expertise in the past, most notably at a secret reactor facility that the Israeli air force destroyed in a surprise attack in northern Syria in 2007. That previously unknown reactor facility was being built with the technical assistance of Iranian and North Korean scientists, according to statements made after the attack by American and Israeli intelligence officials. The facility, which U.S. and Israeli officials said hid a Syrian attempt to start a secret nuclear weapons program, was rendered unusable in the strike and later was dismantled by the Syrians.
"We can confirm that five scientific experts were martyred by terrorists as part of the ongoing plots of the Zionist entity," a Hezbollah internal security commander said via instant messaging from Beirut. He insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters. "This follows the pattern of the enemy who backs and controls terrorists inside Syria in a program to hurt the resistance axis."
The commander also cited the assassination in December 2013 of Hassan Laqqis, a high-ranking Hezbollah official who reportedly was tied to the group's technical programs, including advanced drone and missile technology, according to accounts in Hezbollah-controlled media outlets shortly after his death. He was killed by unknown gunmen outside a suburban Beirut safe house.
An internal Hezbollah and Lebanese army investigation later determined the assassins had infiltrated Lebanon by sea, staked out the parking lot of the apartment complex, shot Laqqis at close range with silenced pistols and departed the country by sea in an operation that took a matter of hours, a hallmark of any of a number of similar assassinations of Islamist and Palestinian figures attributed to Israel over the last four decades.
In Sunday's attack, the five men were killed by machine-gun fire while riding in a commuter van on the outskirts of Damascus. The Hezbollah official said he believed the attack was carried out by Syrian rebels working for Israel.
"We have long determined that the Zionist entity works closely with a number of the so-called rebel groups for anti-Hezbollah and anti-Syrian regime operations," he said.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war, Israeli aircraft have launch at least three airstrikes on Syrian military hardware that Israel feared was being transferred to Hezbollah. Those targets have included advanced missile parts. In May 2013, suspected Israeli aircraft bombed a Syrian research center near the border with Lebanon, where advanced missile technology was under development. Iran, Hezbollah and Syria cooperate closely on the development of long-range weapons, which compose the bulk of Hezbollah's deterrent capability against Israel.
Syria has long denied having any nuclear weapons program, but it is reported to have a small Chinese-made reactor for peaceful research purposes. It is unclear if that reactor is located in Barzeh.
The Barzeh facility itself came under attack in July 2013, when a group described by state television as "jihadists" fired at the facility with rocket-propelled grenades as staff members were departing work, killing at least six and wounding 19, according to Syrian state television at the time.

Israel, which maintains that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability, has recently criticized efforts by President Barack Obama to reach a compromise with the Iranian regime that would allow it to have a peaceful nuclear program and would lift economic sanctions in exchange for Iran renouncing efforts to develop a weapon.
A least five Iranian scientists tied to Iran's nuclear program have been killed in recent years in incidents in or near Tehran, the Iranian capital. Iran has blamed Israel's Mossad spy agency for the deaths; the Israeli government has denied involvement.


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/11/10/24....html?rh=1