THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY

Another Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed in Iran on November 27. He was one of the key figures in the nuclear industry of the Islamic Republic, the head of Iran's nuclear research program.

Fakhrizadeh was the only Iranian nuclear scientist named in a 2011 UN report on Iran's nuclear program. In 2018, he was also mentioned by the Prime Minister of Israel in his report to the world community mainly based on the intel data. The West claimed Fakhrizadeh was the mastermind behind the development of Iran's nuclear bomb.

Secret engineer

Born in 1957 in the religious centre of Iran, the city of Qom, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi was an ethnic Azerbaijani. He was a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) created shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. As a professional physicist, Fakhrizadeh has developed a range of ballistic missiles. He is also the author of a number of technological inventions, such as the device that can remotely detect the novel coronavirus.

Until his death, Fakhrizadeh headed the Defense Research and Innovation Organization under the Iranian Ministry of Defense. In parallel, he taught physics at the Imam Hussein University. Since 1989, he led the Amad project focused on Iran’s nuclear researches. The project was reportedly suspended in 2003. Fakhrizadeh was one of the 500 most influential people in the world according to the Foreign Policy magazine. Fakhrizadeh's involvement in Iran’s secret programs made him an incognito person. He avoided interviews despite the insistent demands of the Western media; he was barred from meeting with inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Due to the assaults on Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years, the Iranian government has defended Fakhrizadeh at the highest level. On the day of the murder, the scientist's car was also guarded, but it was not possible to avoid a carefully planned assassination attempt.

Like a movies

The reports on the murder of Fakhrizadeh reminds the plots of spy films. According to Iranian media, his car parked near the exit from the main road in the vicinities of the Absard suburb of Tehran was blown up. Then 12 militants in cars and motorcycles waiting nearby opened fire on Fakhrizadeh's car. Bodyguards from his escort jumped out from the vehicles trying to protect the scientist. After a short skirmish, the terrorists left the scene. Fakhrizadeh’s guards could take him to the hospital immediately after the incident but nothing could save his life from that moment on.

Tehran threatens to revenge

The perpetrators of the assassination attempt have yet to be captured. However, the Iranian intelligence ministry and government officials said the perpetrators had been identified and would soon be arrested.

Tehran pledged to avenge the death of its scientist. The head of the IRGC, Hussein Salami, condemned the attack on Twitter and said he would avenge the daring assault. Salami blamed Israel saying that "no attack has been left unanswered so far." The Supreme Leader of Iran, Seyed Ali Khamenei, called for the punishment of Fakhrizadeh's killers.

Meanwhile, Iranian nuclear scientists have become victims of assassination attempts several times in the past several years. The first victim was a professor at the Shiraz University, Ardashir Hasanpur, who died from gas poisoning of unknown origin in 2007. In 2010, a professor of the Tehran University, nuclear physicist Masoud Ali Mohammad was killed in a motorcycle explosion in front of his house. In the same year, two more Iranian nuclear scientists were killed: Majid Shahriyari, head of the Department of Nuclear Physics at the University of Shahid Behishti died in a car bomb explosion, and Darius Rzanejad was shot dead in his car. In 2010, the target of killers was the dean of the Faculty of Nuclear Physics, Firidun Abbasi Davani. But he was able to survive the explosion. In January 2012, Mustafa Ahmadi Roshan, an employee of the nuclear centre in Natanz, was killed as a result of yet another explosion of the car parked near the Allama Tabatabai University. The last victim of this unfortunate chain of events was Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Versions

Before the incident with Fakhrizadeh, Tehran accused Israel of involvement in the deaths of five Iranian nuclear scientists. During the investigation, one of the terrorists even confessed that he worked for the Israeli intelligence, although the Israeli government denies the charges.

Later it was reported that Fakhrizadeh was killed with weapons used by NATO. This statement was made by the Secretary of the Expediency Council of Iran, Mohsen Rezai.

Either way, many experts believe that the assassination attempts on Iranian scientists will not stop the nuclear program of Iran. Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on Iranian nuclear activities at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, told the BBC that “Iran’s nuclear program has long ceased to depend on a single person.”

The key question that the world's leading centres for strategic research are trying to find an answer in connection with the assassination of Fakhrizadeh is why the incident happened now.

In fact, the first assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists took place eight years ago. It is clear that Iran's nuclear industry does not depend on just one person. Then why and who would benefit from conspiring such a noisy incident that can easily exacerbate the already tense situation in the region?

We already know the winner of the November presidential elections in the US. This is the former vice-president of the Barack Obama administration, Democrat Joe Biden, who will head the White House from January 20, 2021. Biden has already announced that he would change the current political course towards Iran and the US foreign policy in general. In particular, he plans to restore confidence in the US, primarily by restarting the process of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear deal. In other words, under the new Biden administration, the US will either restore the 2015 deal or sign a new one.

According to some observers, the assassination of Fakhrizadeh was intended to prevent the Biden administration from moving closer to Iran. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani admitted this to some extent. “Our enemies are going through a period of stress, they feel that the international situation has changed, and therefore they want to create chaos in the region,” Rouhani said shortly after the assassination of the scientist.

According to experts, along with Israel, Rouhani believes the Donald Trump administration and Saudi Arabia are also interested in the death of Fakhrizadeh. Iran understands that a number of countries, including the Trump administration, are unhappy with Biden's policy towards Iran and the possibility of future rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. Trump and his team consider the strengthening of Iran detrimental to the US allies in the region, and Biden may actually destroy the Middle East course of the Republicans in general and Trump in particular.

Israel believes that as relations with the US normalize, Iran will become stronger, obtain nuclear weapons and provide more serious support to anti-Israeli forces in the Middle East. Likewise, Saudi Arabia is concerned about the strengthening of Iran's position under Biden (as in the days of Obama), followed by the weakening of the governments of the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf.

By the way, on November 22, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unexpected visit to the region and met with the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman. A few days later, Israeli media reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Director of Mossad, Yassi Cohen, were also present at the meeting in the Saudi city of Neom near the border with Jordan. According to media reports, Pompeo asked bin Salman to sign an agreement to normalize relations with Israel but the latter did not agree.

Interestingly, the next morning, it was reported that the Houthis, which Iran unofficially supports in Yemen, shelled the terminal of the Saudi oil giant Aramco in Jeddah. Some Iranian media reported the incident as a kind of warning to the leadership of Saudi Arabia. This was followed by a rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad. Meanwhile, the American media reported that after the presidential elections, Trump, at a meeting in the White House with the Secretary of Defense, the head of administration and the US Secretary of State, proposed an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, but the participants of the meeting did not agree with his proposal. It is believed that Trump wanted to make ‘a final gift’ to his allies by eliminating Iran's nuclear activities and destroying Biden's foreign policy to normalize relations with Iran before leaving his post. However, it is noted that the president's team still managed to dissuade Trump, convincing him that such strikes could escalate into a long-term war. It is known that Trump had previously declared the IRGC a "terrorist organization" and then ordered the assassination of one of the organization's generals responsible for operations in the Middle East back in January this year.

If we analyse all these facts, the list of perpetrators of Fakhrizadeh’s assassination can be extended. It might even be a joint operation of several countries.

Implications

Undoubtedly, the assassination of Fakhrizadeh will create serious difficulties for the governments of Biden and Rouhani. Moreover, if Tehran revenges, it will be very difficult to rectify the situation. Therefore, it is assumed that the Iranian government will try to delay the response. However, in the opposite camp of Iranian conservatives, they are unlikely to agree to this step in such a delicate issue for the whole country.

Meanwhile, the Iranian authorities seriously discuss the security vacuum that has developed in the country after Fakhrizadeh’s assassination. It is quite understandable since the murder of the country's main nuclear physicist, who was under vigilant guard around the clock, took place in the middle of the day in one of the suburbs of the capital of Iran.