Top Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated

Tehran accused 'Israel' of committing the assassination and a spokesman for Netanyahu's office told NBC News they were "not commenting" on the reports.

Tehran (QNN)- A leading Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated near Tehran on Friday, Iran’s Defense Ministry announced on state television.

“Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote later on Twitter.

Fakhrizadeh was shot and injured “by terrorists” in his vehicle in Absard, a suburb in eastern Tehran, and later succumbed to his injuries in what amounted to a “martyr’s death,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said.

“This cowardice — with serious indications of Israeli role — shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators,” Zarif wrote, referring to the occupation state. “Iran calls on international community — and especially E.U. — to end their shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror.”

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office told NBC News they were “not commenting” on the reports.

Israel has long been suspected of carrying out a series of targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists nearly 10 years ago.

Fakhrizadeh led Iran’s Amad (Hope) program. The occupation state and the West have alleged it was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon in Iran. Tehran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful.

The International Atomic Energy Agency stresses that the Amad program ended in the early 2000s. Its inspectors now monitor Iranian nuclear sites.

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