Wednesday 11 January 2012

Iran car explosion 'kills nuclear scientist' in Tehran


A motorcyclist stuck a bomb on the side of the car in northern Tehran, say reports
A university lecturer and nuclear scientist has been killed in a car explosion in north Tehran, reports say.
Iranian media sources named the casualty as Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, an academic who also worked at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
The blast happened when a motorcyclist stuck a magnetic bomb on the car, said Iran's semi-official Fars news agency.
Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in recent years, with Iran blaming Israel and the US.
Both countries deny the accusations.
Local sources said Wednesday's blast took place at a faculty of Iran's Allameh Tabatai university.
Two others were reportedly also injured in the blast, which took place near Gol Nabi Street, in the north of the capital.
'Magnetic bomb'
Mr Ahmadi-Roshan, 32, was a graduate of oil industry university and supervised a department at Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan province, Fars reported.

Attacks on Iranian scientists

Jan 2012 - Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a professor at the Technical University of Tehran, died after bomb was placed on his car by a motorcyclist
Nov 2010 - Majid Shahriari, member of nuclear engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University, killed in Tehran after bomb attached to his car by motorcyclist in Tehran. Another scientist, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani - future head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran - is hurt in a separate attack
Jan 2010 - Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a physics professor, died when a motorcycle rigged with explosives exploded near his car
"The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and the work of the Zionists [Israelis]," deputy Tehran governor Safarali Baratloo said.
Witnesses said they had seen two people on the motorbike fix the bomb to the car. Another person in the car was reported to have been seriously injured.
The latest attack comes almost two years to the day since Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a 50-year-old university lecturer at Tehran University, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb as he left his home in Tehran on 12 January 2010.
Nuclear suspicions
Reports at the time described Dr Mohammadi as a nuclear physicist, but it later appeared that he was an expert in another branch of physics.
There was also confusion as to whether the attack had any domestic political overtones because of reports about his apparent links to an opposition presidential candidate.
However, in August 2011, an Iranian man - Majid Jamali Fashi - was sentenced to death for the killing, with state authorities saying he was paid by Israel's Mossad spy agency. Israel does not comment on such claims.
Of the latest attack, Fars reports that the bombing method appears similar to another 2010 bombing which injured former university professor Fereydun Abbasi-Davani, now the head of the country's atomic energy organisation.
There has been much controversy over Iran's nuclear activities.
Tehran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes, but the US and other Western nations suspect it of seeking to build nuclear weapons.

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