Tehran, January 13: Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, Iran’s former chief nuclear negotiator, accused intelligence agents of the United States and Israel on Wednesday of plotting a bombing which killed a top atomic scientist.
In an angry address to Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament, Larijani accused US President Barack Obama of state terrorism over the assassination of the scientist.
“Such filthy actions are easy to carry out but such adventurism will do you no good,” the ISNA news agency quoted Larijani as saying in reference to Obama.
“You have practically promoted acts of terrorism.”
Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at prestigious Tehran University, was killed on Tuesday morning by a bomb strapped to a motorcycle in the capital’s well-to-do northern suburbs.
Neither the police nor the intelligence services have yet reported any leads in their investigation into the murder.
But Larijani implicated the US Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s Mossad.
“We had received clear information a few days before (the assassination) that the (intelligence) service of the Zionist regime, with the cooperation of the CIA, were seeking to carry out a terrorist act in Tehran,” Larijani said.
“They (the Israeli and US intelligence agencies) might have thought that, in the face of certain internal disputes, there was an opportunity to take this action and that they could cause friction among academics and harm the country’s nuclear research work,” Larijani added.
Students and the volunteer Basij militia condemned the killing of Ali Mohammadi, who they described as “a Basiji professor.”
The daylight killing also came amid an increasingly bitter standoff between Iran and the US over Tehran’s nuclear programme, which some claim is cover for a weapons drive, but Tehran says is for generating energy for its growing population.
Larijani slammed Obama for “rashly resorting to a monarchist group which has no credibility to cover such an operation.”
“This is a new disgrace for Mr Obama,” he said.
The former nuclear official was alluding to a group called Takavaran Tondar which claimed responsibility for the bombing on its website.
Tehran officials have repeatedly accused the United States and Israel of seeking to foment unrest in Iran. The two countries have previously threatened Iran with military strikes.
“After all those claims of humanitarianism and a change of policy, today all that is left standing is the same old war-mongering and acts of terrorism.”
Larijani insisted that the scientist’s murder would have no impact on Iran’s nuclear programme.
“Now they seek to eliminate nuclear scientists. You will see that these terrorist actions will achieve nothing and the Iranian nation will safeguard its nuclear success.”
—Agencies