Israel's Mossad trained assassins of Iran nuclear scientists, report says

Haaretz 

U.S. officials confirm link between clandestine Israeli operations and People’s Mujahedin of Iran activists, according to NBC News report. 

Mossad officials are training Iranian dissident activists to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, a NBC News report citing U.S. officials said on Thursday. The report noted, however, that Washington was not directly involvement in the alleged attacks.

The report by NBC News followed Iranian accusations that Israel and the U.S. had been orchestrating attacks against Iranian scientists and military officials associated with Iran's nuclear program.

Ahmadi Roshan's car following the
explosion in Tehran, January 11, 2012.

These accusations resurfaced following the most recent alleged attack, as Iranian media reported last month that nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan was killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran.

According to the semi-official Fars news agency, Ahmadi Roshan, 32, supervised a department at Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan province.

Funeral of of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry
expert and a director of the Natanz uranium
enrichment facility in central Iran, who was killed in a
brazen daylight assassination.

The United States has denied involvement in the killing and condemned it. Israel has declined to comment.

Just days following the bombing, Foreign Policy, quoting U.S. intelligence memos, reported that Mossad agents posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistani terror group to carry out assassinations and attacks against the regime in Iran.

Foreign Policy's Mark Perry reported that the Mossad operation was carried out in 2007-2008, behind the back of the U.S. government, and infuriated then U.S. President George W. Bush.

Later, a Sunday Times report claimed that agents associated with Israel's secret services were behind Ahmadi Roshans' assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist.

On Thursday, U.S. officials speaking to NBC news claimed that Mossad agents were training members of the dissident terror group People’s Mujahedin of Iran in order assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, adding that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was aware of the operation, but had no direct link to them.

The U.S. officials reportedly confirmed the link between Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), with one official saying: "All your inclinations are correct.”

Yet another American official would only tell NBC “It hasn’t been clearly confirmed yet.” All officials in question denied any U.S. involvement.

A Foreign Ministry comment to the story said that as "long as we can't see all the evidence being claimed by NBC, the Foreign Ministry won't react to every gossip and report being published worldwide."

The NBC report also cites a senior aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as describing what he said were strong links between Israel and Iranian dissident groups.

Mohammad Javad Larijani is quoted as saying that the these relations are "very intricate and close."

"[Israelis] are paying … the Mujahedin. Some of their (MEK) agents … (are) providing Israel with information. And they recruit and also manage logistical support,” the reported quoted Larijani as saying.

Miscalculation, Provocation or a Staged False Flag Op.? Resist U.S. War Threats on Iran

Global Research
Sarah Flounders

There is growing apprehension that through miscalculation, deliberate provocation or a staged false flag operation, a U.S. war with Iran is imminent.

The dangerous combination of top U.S. officials’ public threats, the Pentagon’s massive military deployment, continued drone flights and industrial sabotage against Iran provides an ominous warning. The corporate media have been more than willing to cheer industrial sabotage, computer viruses and targeted assassinations. War maneuvers with Israel scheduled for mid-January were suddenly postponed Jan. 15 until May or later.

The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly voted to include binding provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, and President Obama signed the legislation Dec. 31 ordering Iran’s economic strangulation. These NDAA provisions demand that every other country in the world joins this economic blockade of Iran or face U.S. sanctions themselves. This itself is an act of war.

Iran has directly charged the CIA for the Jan. 11 assassination of physicist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, which has outraged Iranians. Roshan is the fourth scientist killed in five targeted assassination in two years.

Whether or not a war will actually erupt, it is essential to look at the powerful forces that lay the groundwork for such a conflagration.

A U.S. war would kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians and create regionwide destabilization. It would cause a wild, speculative hike in oil and gas prices, devastating fragile economies of the poorest countries and unhinging the increasingly shaky eurozone.

Revolutionary Marxists like Fidel Castro, political leaders in China and Russia, and even a hardened Israeli general have joined many political commentators to warn that a U.S. or U.S.-supported Israeli attack on Iran could quickly become a far wider war.

While defending its sovereign right to develop energy self-sufficiency, Tehran has made every effort to deflect U.S. threats and charges. Iran has submitted to years of intrusive inspections of its research and industrial facilities to confirm its compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But Washington insists on stopping Iran’s development — and not only its nuclear energy development to assure its future as oil production declines. For decades Iran was forced to import refined oil. Washington has tried to stop Iran from importing parts to build oil refineries, as it has tried to stop all Iran’s development since the 1979 revolution.

The myth of stimulus from war

David Broder, Washington Post political correspondent for 40 years and news show pundit, described in an Oct. 31, 2010, article how Obama could deal with his weakened situation when the Republicans swept Congress. He argued that to fix the economy and regain popularity, the solution is obvious and unavoidable: “War with Iran.”

Broder had more than 400 appearances on “Meet the Press.” He even won a Pulitzer Prize. Broder could be counted on to reflect political thinking and planning in Washington. Only the war machine can pull the U.S. out of economic stagnation, Broder argued.

“Look back at FDR and the Great Depression,” wrote Broder. “What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II. [A showdown with the mullahs] will help [Obama] politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.”

Iran nuclear scientist 'killed' by car bomb

Al Jazeera

State media reports that magnetic bomb placed on vehicle has killed uranium enrichment supervisor in Tehran.

A nuclear scientist who supervised a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility has been killed by a magnetic bomb placed on his car by two assailants in northern Tehran, Iranian media reported.

The attack strongly resembles earlier killings of scientists working on the country's controversial nuclear programme.

The bomb explosion killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz facility in central Iran, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said Israeli agents were behind the attack, but said they cannot "prevent progress'' in what Iran claims are peaceful nuclear efforts.

Safar Ali Baratloo, a senior security official, was also quoted by Fars as saying the attack was the work of Israelis.

"The magnetic bomb is of the same types already used to assassinate our scientists," he said.
Roshan, 32, was inside the Iranian-assembled Peugeot 405 with two others when the bomb expoded near Gol Nabi Street, Fars reported.

Fars described the explosion as a "terrorist attack" targeting Roshan, a graduate of the prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.

"The deputy governor of Tehran is blaming [the attack] on Israel, saying it wants to destabilise the country ahead of presidential elections in March," Al Jazeera's Dorsa Jabbari said.

"But it's unclear as to how, in such a secure city as Tehran, such attacks can take place over and over again."

Previous attacks


Ahmadi Roshan was "working as the deputy in charge of commerce at the Natanz [uranium enrichment] site", said a posting on Sharif University's website. "He was working on project of making polymeric membrane for separating gas."

A similar bomb explosion on January 12, 2010, killed Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a senior physics professor at Tehran University, when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded near his car as he was about to leave for work.
In November 2010, a pair of back-to-back bomb attacks in different parts of the capital killed one nuclear scientist and wounded another.

The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, was a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran and co-operated with the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran.

The wounded scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, was almost immediately appointed head of Iran's atomic agency.
In July 2011, motorcycle-riding gunmen killed Darioush Rezaeinejad, an electronics student. Other reports identified him as a scientist involved in suspected Iranian attempts to make nuclear weapons.

The Blast Killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan [Reuters]

Rezaeinejad allegedly participated in developing high-voltage switches, a key component in setting off the explosions needed to trigger a nuclear warhead.

Imad Khadduri, a nuclear expert, told Al Jazeera, "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of such scientists", beyond the five targeted in recent attacks.

He said the string of assassinations was "100 per cent Mossad [Israel's secret service]", but he called the victims "small fish".

Ronen Bergman, an Israeli author and journalist, told Al Jazeera that "for years Mossad has a tradition of assassinating scientists", for two specific purposes.
"One target is to take out people of profound importance [to the project], and the second target is to spread fear among the other scientists that the same fate may happen to them as well."

According to Ronen, the assassination demonstrated that "someone is highly capable in recruiting people from within the project and sabotaging it".

'Unnatural' events


Wednesday's assassination is "evidence of [foreign] government-sponsored terrorism" but will not stop Iran's nuclear programme, Rahimi told state television.

"Today those who claim to be combatting terrorism have targeted Iranian scientists," he said. "They should know that Iranian scientists are more determined than ever in striding towards Iran's progress."

The United States and Israel say Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons technology. Iran denies the allegations, saying that its programme is intended for peaceful purposes.

There was no immediate word from officials in Israel, which has always declined comment on previous such bombings.

On Tuesday, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief of staff, was quoted as saying that Iran should expect more "unnatural" events in 2012.

His comments, to a closed-door parliamentary panel, were widely interpreted as alluding to previous acts of sabotage.

"For Iran, 2012 is a critical year in combining the continuation of its nuclearisation, internal changes in the Iranian leadership, continuing and growing pressure from the international community and things which take place in an unnatural manner," Gantz was quoted as saying.