Iran's president vows revenge over slain military scientist

Iran's president vowed Saturday to exact revenge over killing of a scientist linked to Tehran's disbanded military nuclear program as he joined or officials in blaming Israel for slaying.

Israel, long suspected of killing scientists a dece ago amid tensions over Tehran's nuclear program, has yet to comment on killing Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizeh. However, attack bore hallmarks of a carefully planned, military-style ambush.

slaying threatens to renew tensions between U.S. and Iran in waning days of President Donald Trump's term, just as President-elect Joe Biden has suggested his ministration could return to Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers from which Trump earlier withdrew. Pentagon anunced early Saturday that it sent USS Nimitz aircraft carrier back into Mideast.

Speaking to a meeting of his government's coronavirus taskforce, Rouhani reiterated that Fakhrizeh's death would t stop its nuclear program. Iran's civilian nuclear program has continued its experiments and w enriches uranium up to 4.5%, far below weapons-gre levels of 90%.

But analysts have compared Fakhrizeh to being on a par with Robert Oppenheimer, scientist who led U.S.' Manhattan Project in World War II that created atom bomb.

“We will respond to assassination of Martyr Fakhrizeh in a proper time," Rouhani said.

He ded: " Iranian nation is smarter than falling into trap of Zionists. y are thinking to create chaos.”

Friday's attack happened in Absard, a vill just east of capital that is a retreat for Iranian elite. Iranian state television said an old truck with explosives hidden under a lo of wood blew up near a sedan carrying Fakhrizeh.

As Fakhrizeh’s sedan stopped, at least five gunmen emerged and raked car with rapid fire, semiofficial Tasnim news ncy said.

Fakhrizeh died at a hospital after doctors and paramedics couldn’t revive him. Ors wounded included Fakhrizeh’s bodyguards. Photos and video shared online showed a Nissan sedan with bullet holes in windshield and blood pooled on ro.

Hours after attack, Pentagon anunced it h brought USS Nimitz aircraft carrier back into Middle East, an unusual move as carrier alrey spent months in region. It cited drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as reason for decision, saying “it was prudent to have ditional defensive capabilities in region to meet any contingency.”

attack comes just days before 10-year anniversary of killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari that Tehran also blamed on Israel. That and or targeted killings happened at time that so-called Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, destroyed Iranian centrifuges.

Those assaults occurred at height of Western fears over Iran's nuclear program. Tehran long has insisted its program is peaceful. However, Fakhrizeh led Iran’s so-called AM program that Israel and West have alleged was a military operation looking at feasibility of building a nuclear weapon. International Atomic Energy ncy says that “structured program” ended in 2003.

IAEA inspectors monitor Iranian nuclear sites as part of w-unraveling nuclear deal with world powers, which saw Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for lifting of ecomic sanctions.

After Trump's 2018 withdrawal from deal, Iran has abandoned all those limits. Experts w believe Iran has eugh low-enriched uranium to make at least two nuclear weapons if it chose to pursue bomb. Meanwhile, an vanced centrifuge assembly plant at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility exploded in July in what Tehran w calls a sabot attack .

Fakhrizeh, born in 1958, h been sanctioned by U.N. Security Council and U.S. for his work on AM. Iran always described him as a university physics professor. A member of Revolutionary Guard, Fakhrizeh h been seen in pictures in meetings attended by Iran’s Supreme Leer Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a sign of his importance in Iran's ocracy.

In recent years, U.S. sanctions lists name him as heing Iran’s Organization for Defensive Invation and Research. State Department described that organization last year as working on “dual-use research and development activities, of which aspects are potentially useful for nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery systems.”

Iran’s mission to U.N., meanwhile, described Fakhrizeh’s recent work as “development of first indigeus COVID-19 test kit” and overseeing Tehran’s efforts at making a possible coronavirus vaccine.