A senior Iranian nuclear scientist was shot to death outside his home east of Tehran on Saturday, the latest in a series of mysterious deaths of Iranians allegedly associated with the country's nuclear program. The semi-official ISNA news agency identified the victim of the fatal shooting as Dr. Darioush Rezaei, 35, who holds a doctorate in physics and was a lecturer at Mohaghegh Ardabili University. Rezaei was also a senior member of Irans Atomic Energy Organization. Following reports of Rezaei's death, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency denied that the physicist was assassinated, saying there had been a mix-up. Fars news agency said the victim of Saturday's attack was Darioush Rezaeinejad, a university student in Tehran. According to the ISNA news agency report, Rezaei had parked his car outside his home and got out of the vehicle when two masked assailants on a motorcycle fired several shots at him. Rezaei was killed instantly, and his wife, who was next to him, was severely injured and was taken to the hospital. Local police arrived soon after the incident and cordoned off the area. Iran's state prosecutor announced that the case was being investigated thoroughly. Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani on Sunday accused the United States and Israel of masterminding the killing, Mehr news agency reported. "The American-Zionist terrorist act yesterday against one of the country's scientists is yet another sign of the Americans' degree of animosity," Larijani said. On November 29, 2010, Majid Shahriar, a quantum physicist who worked with the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization and lectured at Tehran University, was killed when unidentified assailants on motorcycles attached a bomb to his car and detonated it from a distance. That same day, assailants attached a bomb to the car of nuclear scientist Dr. Fereydoon Abbasi, a professor at Shahid Beheshti University, injuring both him and his wife. Abbasi recovered and was appointed head of the organization. In January 2010, Dr. Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, a professor of physics at the Tehran University, was killed when a bomb attached to his car was detonated near his home in North Tehran. Mohammadi was considered a senior nuclear scientist with close ties to the Iranian government. He was said to have been active in the Iranian nuclear program. After Mohammadi's death, Iranian authorities announced the arrest of several suspects, one of who was named as Jamal Pesh, who confessed on Iranian television that he worked for the Mossad and had spent time in Tel Aviv.
The shooting comes amid increasing concerns in the West that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Iranian authorities believe the string of scientists' deaths is part of an assassination campaign aimed at thwarting Iran's nuclear program, and authorities have repeatedly accused Israeli and U.S. intelligence services of carrying out the assassinations.
