Published 04:33 IST, November 30th 2020
Iranian newspaper calls for attack on Israel as revenge for nuclear scientist's murder
Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif in a tweet indicated Israel's role in the assassination as he slammed the international community for its mild response
In a troubling development, an Iranian newspaper has suggested that Tehran should attack the Israeli city of Haifa if its intelligence agency Mossad or the government had any role to play in the recent assassination of the nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The hardline Iranian newspaper, in an opinion piece published on Sunday, November 29, is reported to have said that an attack should be carried out in such a way that it destroys Israeli facilities and kills as many civilians as possible. Iran has blamed Israel for the murder of its top nuclear scientist and has vowed revenge against the perpetrators.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was regarded as the father of Iran's nuclear programme, was killed on Friday by at least five gunmen who showered bullets on his sedan on the outskirts of Tehran. Fakhrizadeh was reportedly returning with his bodyguard from a nearby village of Absard, which is a hilltop retreat for Iranian elites. The Iranian media reported that minutes before the attack, a truck, ridden with explosives, blew up near his car forcing them to stop.
The opinion piece, written by Iranian analyst Sadollah Zarei and published in Kayhan newspaper, argued that the previous responses were not enough to prevent Israel from carrying out assassination attempts in Iran. As per reports, Zarei said that Tehran should consider something bigger while attacking Haifa than the ballistic missile strikes on US bases in Iraq earlier this year after American troops killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
Israeli involvement?
Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif in a tweet on Friday indicated Israel's role in the assassination as he slammed the international community, especially the EU, for their "shameful double standards" in not condemning the killing. The outgoing US President Donald Trump retweeted a post by an Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, who informed about Fakhrizahed's killing on the micro-blogging site and wrote that Fakhrizadeh's death was "a major psychological and professional blow for Iran".
Israel has not commented on killing yet, but the country is known to have participated in previous such attacks on top Iranian scientists and scholars. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018 had mentioned Fakhrizadeh's name publicly in a press conference as he said, "remember that name" while talking about Iran's nuclear weapons programme.
According to the United States intelligence community and the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the nuclear programme in which Fakhrizadeh was involved had been disbanded in 2002. However, Israel insists that Iran's nuclear programme is alive and kicking.
Updated 04:33 IST, November 30th 2020