Israel ‘not shedding a tear’ over mystery death of Iranian nuclear scientist

Reuters  Jan 11, 2012 – 8:26 AM ET | Last Updated: Jan 11, 2012 1:21 PM ET

JERUSALEM — A senior Israeli official on Wednesday said he was unaware who planted a car bomb that killed an Iranian nuclear scientist, but called the plot an act of “revenge.”

“I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I am definitely not shedding a tear,” Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai wrote on his official Facebook page.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, was killed along with his driver/bodyguard in a Tehran car bombing earlier on Wednesday, in a blast the Islamic republic immediately blamed on Israel and the United States.

He was the fourth Iranian scientist to be killed in an explosion in the past two years, with the finger repeatedly pointed at Israel.

Israeli officials rarely respond to such accusations and for the most part, do not comment on events in Iran, but the story made the headlines on the websites of the country’s main newspapers, as well as on its radio and television stations.

The blast came a day after Israel’s chief of staff said 2012 would be a “critical” year for Iran.

“2012 is expected to be a critical year in terms of the link between the continuation of the nuclearisation (process), the internal changes within the Iranian leadership, the growing pressure from the international community and things which happen to them in an unnatural way,” Lieutenant General Benny Gantz told MPs in remarks communicated by a spokesman.

His comments were interpreted in the press as referring to a series of mysterious attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear programme and officials involved in various aspects of it.

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The scientist was killed by a magnet bomb fixed to his car by a motorcyclist, intensifying diplomatic tensions the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The bombing came as Washington sought to persuade a skeptical China to help efforts to toughen sanctions against Iran.

“The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the Zionists,” Tehran Deputy Governor Safarali Baratlou told the semi-official Fars news agency, referring to Israel.

“Iran’s enemies should know they cannot prevent Iran’s progress by carrying out such terrorist acts,” state news agency IRNA quoted First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying.

Heightened tensions over the nuclear program, which major oil producer Iran insists is purely for civilian use but Western powers suspect has military goals, have driven oil prices higher, with Brent crude up more than 5% since the start of the year to above US$113 a barrel.

The European Union has brought forward to Jan. 23 a ministerial meeting that is likely to confirm an embargo on oil purchases, and big importers of Iranian oil are moving to secure alternative supplies. Iran is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) second biggest exporter.

NUCLEAR AGENCY DEFIANT

The victim was a nuclear scientist who “supervised a department at Natanz uranium enrichment facility,” Fars said.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation confirmed in a statement that chemistry engineer Mostafa Ahmadi-roshan was part of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and vowed not to be deflected from its development of nuclear technology: “America and Israel’s heinous act will not change the course of the Iranian nation,” it said.

Witnesses told Reuters they had seen two people on the motorcycle fix the bomb to the car. As well as the person killed in the car, a pedestrian was also killed. Another person in the car was gravely injured, they said.

Other Iranian media also reported the death but there were differing accounts of the killing.