TERRORISTS ASSASSINATE IRANIAN SCIENTIST

Unidentified assailants riding motorcycles on November 29 launched separate bomb attacks in Tehran against two of the country’s top nuclear scientists, killing one and prompting accusations that the United States and Israel were again trying to disrupt Iran’s nuclear programme. The motorcycle attackers reportedly attached the bombs to the professors’ cars and then drove off, detonating them from a distance. Prof. Fereydoon Abbasi’s wife was also hurt in the blast, the reports said. Last January, a remote-controlled bomb had killed a physics professor, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, outside his home. The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, managed a “major project” for the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, was reported as saying. His injured colleague, Fereydoon Abbasi, is believed to be even more important; he is on the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions list for ties to the Iranian nuclear effort. Israel and the United States have often signalled that they will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. Neither has acknowledged pursuing sabotage or assassinations there, but both are widely believed to be pursuing ways to undermine the country’s nuclear programme, the report added.