Iran's supreme leader calls for 'definitive
punishment' of scientist's killers
Ayatollah threatens retaliation after president blames
Israel for assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh
Oliver
Holmes and Patrick Wintour
Sat 28 Nov
2020 15.59 GMTFirst published on Sat 28 Nov 2020 07.06 GMT
Iran’s
supreme leader has called for the “definitive punishment” of those behind the
killing of one of the country’s most senior scientists, who was identified by
Israel as having headed a secret nuclear weapons programme.
Mohsen
Fakhrizadeh, the architect of Tehran’s nuclear strategy, was killed on Friday
on a highway near the capital in a carefully planned assassination that has led
to a serious escalation of tensions in the Middle East.
Iran
accused its arch-enemy, Israel, of carrying out the attack. Expecting
retaliation, Israel put its global embassies on high alert on Saturday,
Hebrew-language media reported.
In a
statement, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Fakhrizadeh “the country’s prominent
and distinguished nuclear and defensive scientist”.
Iran’s
immediate priority, he said, was the “definitive punishment of the perpetrators
and those who ordered it”. He did not elaborate.
Speaking
during a meeting of his government’s coronavirus taskforce, the Iranian
president, Hassan Rouhani, blamed Israel and reiterated that Fakhrizadeh’s
death would not stop the country’s nuclear programme, which it claims is
non-military and focused on energy.
During the
past decade, Iran has accused Israel of killing at least five of its nuclear
scientists, although Fakhrizadeh is considered the most senior and
high-profile.
“We will
respond to the assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh in a proper time,” Rouhani
said, suggesting it could be days or weeks before a retaliation.
Iran later
told the UN in a letter there were “serious indications of Israeli
responsibility” and that it reserved the right to “take all necessary measures
to defend its people”.
During past
spikes in hostility, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, has carried out
attacks on Israeli targets.
An Israeli
military spokesperson said it would not “comment on reports in the foreign
media,” while the country’s prime minister’s office also remained silent.
Donald
Trump, who had Iran’s most powerful general killed in a drone strike earlier
this year, has not spoken about Friday’s attack. However, in a possible hint of
his support, the outgoing US president retweeted an Israeli journalist who
described the killing as a “major psychological and professional blow for
Iran”.
Concerns
have mounted in the Middle East that Israel might use the final weeks of the
Trump administration to take action. The US president is generally seen in
Israel as more permissive of its ambitions, both political and military, than
the president-elect, Joe Biden.
To Israel’s
dismay, Biden has said he is willing to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal abandoned
by Trump and lift some economic sanctions if Iran comes back into compliance
with the agreement. Israel and regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia want the US to
remain outside the deal.
Trita
Parsi, the executive vice-president of the Washington-based Quincy Institute
thinktank, said Israel was a “prime suspect”, and suggested the country carried
out the killing to damage any attempt by Biden to rebuild the US’s relationship
with Iran.
“The main
impact of attacks of this kind will not be to set back Iran’s programme but to
render diplomacy for Biden more difficult,” he said, adding that Israel’s
leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has long sought to drag Washington into a
confrontation.
Without
suggesting who carried out the killing, Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli
Defence Force intelligence, said: “With the window of time left for Trump, such
a move could lead Iran to a violent response, which would provide a pretext for
a US-led attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.”
John
Brennan, a former head of the CIA under Barack Obama, called the assassination
“a criminal act and highly reckless”. “Iranian leaders would be wise to wait
for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage and to
resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits,” he tweeted.
The
spokesperson for Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, described the
attack as a “criminal act” and called for “all parties to remain calm and
exercise maximum restraint”.
Fakhrizadeh
was ambushed with explosives and gun fire in the town of Absard, 70km (44
miles) east of Tehran. Efforts to resuscitate him in hospital failed. His
bodyguard and family members were also wounded.
The
scientist had been described by western and Israeli intelligence services for
years as the leader of a covert atomic bomb programme halted in 2003. He was a
central figure in a presentation by Israel’s Netanyahu, in 2018 accusing Iran
of continuing to seek nuclear weapons. “Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,”
Netanyahu said during the presentation.
Netanyahu
accused Iran at the time of hiding and expanding its nuclear weapons knowhow,
saying that Israeli intelligence had obtained a half-tonne cache of nuclear
archive materials from the country. Iran has always denied it has any interest
in developing nuclear weapons.
During the
final months of Trump’s presidency, Israel has been making peace with Gulf Arab
states that share its hostility towards Iran. This month, Netanyahu travelled
to Saudi Arabia and met its crown prince, according to Israeli officials, in
the first reported visit by an Israeli leader.
Agencies contributed to this report
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