Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist

  • Iran's senior most nuclear scientist, Mohsin Fakhrizadeh was assassinated near Tehran on November 27.
  • Fakhrizadeh was the Head of Research and Innovation Organization at the defense ministry. 
  • He was widely seen by Western intelligence as the mastermind of clandestine Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
  • Iran, however, denies that Fakhrizadeh was involved in any such undertaking and that it ever tried to weaponize uranium enrichment for nuclear energy.
  • Fakhrizadeh also has the rare distinction of being the only Iranian scientist named in the International Atomic Energy Agency's 2015 "final assessment" of open questions about Iran's nuclear program and whether it was aimed at developing a bomb.

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