Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Iran Scientist blown up on his way to work

Today, Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was killed by a bomb that exploded outside his home in Tehran, Iran. Mohammadi was a nuclear physicist at Tehran University. Authorities (as well as the media) believe that this was an assassination, and that the political repercussions could be serious. The civilian bombing is just one of many escalating acts of violence that have been occuring in Iran since the re-election of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June.While many say that this was an attack from groups who are against the new Iranian President, many are casting the blame west. The blast was said to have shattered windows 300ft away; witnesses say that the bomb was attached to a motorcycle outside Ali-Mohammadi's apartment; others say it was in a trash bin, then detonated by remote control.

Ali-Mohammadi was allegedly believed to be employed by Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Iran's nuclear program. His colleagues, however, say that Ali-Mohammadi "was not directly involved in nuclear research", and even though he gave his ideas and comments in discussions, "we cannot call him a nuclear scientist."

Local news hardline Fars new agency reports that Pres. Ahmadinejad believes that the attack was allegedly planned by the West and Israel in an attempt to put a stop to Iran's nuclear program, which Iran claims is being developed for "civilians ' purposes". Yeah, right. It's totally for the citizens, that's why we have so many missiles in the US, right?

Anyway, the bombing was believed to be an attack from the West and Israel in an attempt to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapon capability. After Iran's missile launch attempt in September of last year, the West and Israel have been trying to get scientists involved in the program to defect from it.

All this violence and killing, for what? The guy was a quantum physics professor who was working with group of scientists from various countries, including Israel, to build a particle accelerator. He wasn't a religious extremist; he was, to put it bluntly, a huge science nerd! Still, my condolensces go out to his family at this time.

3 comments:

Andrew said...

Well, President Ahmadinejad being an idiot was already a given. I mean his own people don't like him, how bad can you get?

This does smell like an assassination attempt, however. We'll never know who was responsible for it. At least, the U.S. and Israel aren't going to come out with anything, typically. Who knows, maybe, as suggested, a Iranian civilian assassinated him? It's all up in the air at the moment.

William C said...

This definitely sounds like covert ops, Blackwater-style activity to me. It doubles as a form of psychological blackmail, making an example of those who work for "the enemy". The internal government tensions explanation doesn't quite cut it, but then again one can form a conspiracy theory for anything.

http://blogs.sundaymercury.net/thegrassyknoll/2008/12/top-10-most-ridiculous-conspir.html

Scott Silton said...

The people with the greatest motive to commit this act are inside the current Iranian regime. It serves as a distraction from their crisis of legitimacy by allowing them to point at the US and Israel. The cost/benefit analysis just doesn't make sense for the West as much as it does for the Iranian regime.