Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the Iranian scientist who was the victim of an assassination attributed to Israel by Iran on Friday, is one of those men practically unknown on the international scene reaching posthumous notoriety. This Monday, November 30, he was buried with a protocol worthy of the greatest “Martyrs” of the Islamic Republic. Little is known about him, but one thing is certain: he was important. Here is what we know about him and the operation he suffered.
The eminent physicist was important enough to meet Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in January 2019, as evidenced by official photos released after his death.
Sufficiently important to drive an armored car, to benefit from an armed escort and for the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Baghéri, to promise that a “Terrible revenge” will fall on his assassins.
Still important enough to be the subject of a state funeral. His remains were honored on Saturday and Sunday in two of Iran’s main Shiite holy places (Mashhad and Qom), before a tribute at the mausoleum of Imam Khomeini in Tehran. The funeral prayer was led on Monday by Ziaoddine Aqajanpour, representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, at the Ministry of Defense. The “martyr doctor” was brought to the ground at Imamzadeh-Saleh, an important Shiite shrine in northern Tehran, where two other scientists were buried in 2010 and 2011.
And perhaps also so important, in the eyes of those who eliminated it, to justify an operation which in all likelihood required advanced logistics and resources.
It was only after Fakhrizadeh’s death that Defense Minister Amir Hatami revealed that this atomist scholar was one of his deputy ministers and the head of the Research and Research Organization. innovation in defense (Sepand, according to the acronym in Persian).
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The “brain” of Iranian nuclear power?
What exact role did this grizzled bearded 59-year-old nuclear physicist play, according to the Iranian press? Was he this high official who “Managed the atomic defense”doing “Considerable work” in this area and having played a “Prominent role in defense innovations” from his country, as General Hatami said?
Or, as Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said in April 2018, the head of a secret military nuclear program, which Tehran has always denied? “Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh”He said at the time, showing the documents which he said proved that Iran had lied when it claimed not to have sought nuclear weapons and that the 2015 nuclear agreement was based on the “Iranian deception”. General Hatami, for his part, denied that Fakhrizadeh had participated in any military nuclear program.
For Karim Sadjadpour, from the American think tank Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, “It will probably take months, if not years, to appreciate all the consequences of Fakhrizadeh’s death”. “Those who truly understand the precise role he played in Iran’s daily nuclear activities do not speak, and those who speak do not know”, he tweeted.
US media have called him “Mossad number 1 target”, the Israeli intelligence agency, and “Brain of Iran’s nuclear program”.
Targeted by UN sanctions
Before Mr. Netanyahu spoke about him, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh appeared in December 2015 in a document from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This UN body believed that it had led, from “Early 2000s”, “Activities in support of a possible military dimension” Iranian nuclear program started “At the end of the 1980s” before being regrouped under his direction in a project called AMAD, until being abandoned “At the end of 2003”.
In March 2007, the same Fakhrizadeh was targeted by UN Security Council sanctions along with other “Persons contributing to the nuclear or ballistic missile program” from Iran. Council resolution 1747 identified it as “Researcher at the Ministry of Defense” and “Former head of the Physics Research Center (PHRC)”, noting that “The IAEA had asked to question him about the activities of the PHRC during the period that he was working there, but (that it had) been refused by Iran”.
These sanctions were lifted after the entry into force of the international Iranian nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna in 2015 between the Islamic Republic and the 5 + 1 group (China, United States, France, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany).
After US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull his country out of this pact in 2018, the sanctions enacted by Washington in 2008 against Fakhrizadeh in the wake of resolution 1747 had been reinstated.
He worked in the “enrichment” of uranium
According to Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Saléhi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (OIEA), Fakhrizadeh obtained a doctorate in “Nuclear physics and engineering” and had worked for his thesis with Fereydoun Abbassi Davani, former head of the OIEA, himself targeted by an assassination attempt in 2010.
Evoking for state media the memory of a ” close friend “ and D’“Close professional collaboration of thirty-four years”, the latter indicated having been at the front with Fakhrizadeh during the war between Iraq and Iran (1980-1988).
He has “Worked in all areas to support the country’s nuclear activities”, especially in that of “Enrichment” uranium, continued Mr. Abbassi Davani, it was “A competent manager and a prestigious scientist, and he can be elevated to the same rank as the martyr Soleimani [le général Qassem Soleimani éliminé en janvier par Washington] in the field of science and technology “.
“His work was important to him”his widow said on state television hours after the assassination. It was “A kind and compassionate husband, and he loved his country. I ask (those in charge) to continue on the path he has marked so that his blood is not spilled in vain ”.
A “complex” operation
“We knew that he had been threatened with assassination on several occasions and that he was being followed”General Hatami said. Their son Hamed Fakhrizadeh said his mother was in the car with his father at the time of the attack. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed near Tehran in a vehicle bomb attack followed by a shootout against his vehicle.
In interviews with Iranian media, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, spoke of“A complex operation with recourse to electronic equipment”. The People’s Mujahedin, an opposition group in exile, “Must have been involved”, But “The criminal element in all of this is the Zionist regime and the Mossad”, he said.
According to him, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh had been targeted many times in the past, “But this time the enemy used a completely new, professional and specialized style and method, and succeeded in achieving the objective they had pursued for twenty years”.
Without citing sources, Iranian news agency Fars claimed that the attack was carried out using a “remote-controlled automatic machine gun” and mounted on a Nissan pickup. Quoting a “Informed source”, Press TV, an English-language state television news channel, reported that weapons recovered from the scene of the assassination had been “Made in Israel”. So far, Israel has not commented on Tehran’s accusations.
