The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh comes at a sensitive and important time. It is between the US election and the swearing in of a new president. It also comes less than a week after a reported visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Saudi Arabia. That visit was called a message to the new US administration of President-elect Joe Biden, as well as a message to Iran.
The killing of a nuclear scientist closely linked to Iran’s secretive nuclear program is an even bigger message. Iran has been humiliated by having one of it's leading professors and nuclear chiefs, one whose name was well known, apparently gunned down in broad daylight on the street near Absard Iran, east of Tehran. Photos showed blood, a car with bullet holes and a second vehicle that had been blown up.
Let’s go back to 2018 when Israel’s Foreign Ministry published a speech by Prime Minister Netanyahu in which he named Fakhrizadeh. The entire quote is interesting. “There’s another document from the archive. This is following the new directive of Iran’s Minister of Defense, Mr. Shamkhani, today he’s the director of the National Security Council. Following the new directive of Iran’s Minister of Defense, the work would be split into two parts, covert and overt. A key part of the plan was to form new organizations to continue the work. This is how Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of Project Amad, put it. Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh. So here’s his directive, right here. And he says: “The general aim is to announce the closure of Project Amad,” but then he adds, “Special activities”—you know what that is—“Special activities will be carried out under the title of scientific know-how developments.” And in fact, this is exactly what Iran proceeded to do. It continued this work in a series of organizations over the years, and today, in 2018, this work is carried out by SPND, that’s an organization inside Iran’s Defense Ministry. And you will not be surprised to hear that SPND is led by the same person that led Project Amad, Dr. Fakhrizadeh, and also, not coincidentally, many of SPND’s key personnel worked under Fakhrizadeh on Project Amad.” READ MORE
