Israeli intelligence smuggled one-ton gun to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientist: Report

The Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated near Tehran in November 2020 was killed by a one-ton gun smuggled into Iran in pieces by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, reported The Jewish Chronicle on Wednesday. The media outlet cited its intelligence sources to claim that over 20 agents including Israeli and Irani nationals, carried out the ambush on scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh nearly after eight months of surveillance.

Fakhrizadeh was killed in November last year in an armed attack that according to an Associated Press report, bore the fears of military-style ambush, likes of which Israel has been accused of carrying out in the past. The November 27, 2020 incident in Iran not only ignited tensions in the region but Tehran also placed the blame for the murder on Israel and Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei demanding “definitive punishment”.

Iranian media, at the time, had said that the nuclear scientist, that led Tehran’s disbanded military program, died in hospital after armed assassins gunned him down in his car. Shortly after Fakhrizadeh’s death, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had started blaming Israel over “serious indications”. As per reports, the Israel government did not comment in November last year but recently noted that Jerusalem ‘never’ comments on such matters. The nuclear scientist whose unprecedented assassination took the Islamic Republic by storm was reportedly long suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb programme. 

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Iran to take ‘six years’ to replace Fakhrizadeh

As per the Jewish Chronicle report, Iran has “secretly assessed that it will take six years” before a replacement for him is “fully operational” and added that Fakhrizadeh’s death had “extended the period of time it would take Iran to achieve a bomb from about three-and-a-half months to two years.” However, the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper did not give further details of its sourcing. 

But it reported that Israeli intelligence agency Mossad mounted the automated gun on a Nissan pickup and the “the bespoke weapon, operated remotely by agents on the ground as they observed the target, was so heavy because it included a bomb that destroyed the evidence after the killing.” It also noted that the attack was orchestrated “by Israel alone, without American involvement” but American officials were notified in some form beforehand. 

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