Iran blames CIA, Mossad as it buries scientist

TEHRAN, Friday

Iran accused Israel and the United States of killing one of its top scientists as part of an increasingly contentious campaign against its nuclear programme as it buried him on Friday.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a deputy director of Iran’s main uranium enrichment plant, was killed on Wednesday when two men on a motorbike slapped a magnetic bomb on his car while it was stuck in Tehran traffic.

His funeral was held after midday prayers, state media reported.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the “abominable” and “cowardly” killing was committed “with the planning or support of the intelligence services of the CIA and Mossad,” of the United States and Israel.

He said in a statement his country would “continue with determination” its nuclear activities, which Western governments suspect mask a drive for a weapons capability despite Tehran’s repeated denials.

Some media close to Iran’s conservatives have called for “retaliation” against Israeli officials. The Iranian government has demanded that the UN Security Council condemn the “terrorist” killing.

The United States has strongly denied it had anything to do with the assassination, although Defence Secretary Leon Panetta admitted: “We have some ideas as to who might be involved.”

Prime suspect

The prime suspect is widely seen as Israel, as it was in the murders of three other Iranian scientists in similar circumstances over the past two years. Israel, though, has a policy of not commenting on intelligence matters.

Asked in a CNN interview on Friday if Israel was involved in Wednesday’s assassination of a nuclear scientist in Tehran, President Shimon Peres said: “Not to the best of my knowledge.”

US President Barack Obama spoke with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu the day after the scientist’s murder to discuss developments in Iran.

The US has been leading a campaign to bring Iran’s economy to its knees by slapping unilateral Western sanctions on its vital oil exports.

Obama last month signed a law targeting Iran’s central bank, which clears most of the oil payments, and US envoys have been fanning out in recent days to convince other nations to come on board or risk seeing their firms barred from doing business in America.

But Iran’s two main allies on the world stage, Russia and China, have expressed strong criticism of the new Western measures and remain adamantly opposed to any new UN sanctions.

“Additional sanctions against Iran, as well as potentially any military strikes against it, will unquestionably be perceived by the international community as an attempt at changing the regime in Iran,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gannady Gatilov said on Friday.

(AFP)