Iran: Armed forces member involved in murder of nuclear physicist

The person who made the initial preparations for the assassination was a military man, Mahmoud Alavi announced Monday night in an interview with state television without providing further details. Alavi emphasized that his Ministry does not have the competence to collect information about the armed forces of Iran.

Fakhrizadeh was killed on 27 November near Tehran in an attack on his vehicle. The nuclear physicist was introduced, after his death, as deputy minister of defense and head of the Defense Research and Innovation Organization (Sépand), having contributed in particular to the country's atomic defense.

Iranian authorities accused Israel of having ordered this attack and, according to Tehran, used a satellite-controlled machine gun, among other equipment. Israel did not react to these charges. In December, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatolah Ali Khamenei, awarded a prestigious military award posthumously to the nuclear physicist. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu introduced Fakhrizadeh as the director of a secret military nuclear program whose existence Iran has always denied.