telling<\/a><\/strong> journalists on November 30 that “the enemy had for 20 years unsuccessfully sought [to kill Fakhrizadeh].”<\/p>\nShamkahni said that due to the frequency of reports in the past two decades about possible attempts to kill Fakhrizadeh, a plot to assassinate him was not taken seriously enough.<\/p>\n
“This time they succeeded,” he said, adding that the operation to kill Fakhrizadeh was “very complicated” and confirming a Fars report that there were no assassins on the ground.<\/p>\n
Shamkhani claimed the security services knew the attack was coming.<\/p>\n
“[Our] intelligence services and networks have received the information that he would be targeted — they had even known that an [assassination] attempt would be made against him on the same spot where he eventually reached martyrdom,” Shamkhani said. “His protection was even intensified. But this time the enemy utilized a completely new, advanced, and sophisticated method.”<\/p>\n
Shamkhani also named the entities he believes are responsible for the killing.<\/p>\n
“The person who designed the operation is known to us. We know who they are and what their background is,” he said, without providing details. “Definitely, the hypocrites (a reference to the exiled Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq) had a role in it. Definitely, the criminal element of this action is the Zionist regime and Mossad.”<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK) dismissed “Shamkhani’s rage, rancor, and lies” against the group, while claiming credit for past revelations on Iran’s nuclear program and previously secret sites.<\/p>\n
Israel has not commented on the killing, seen by many as a move to disrupt Tehran in any effort to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.<\/p>\n
Israeli ‘Trap’?<\/strong><\/big><\/p>\nIn an interview with state television, Fereydun Abbassi, who survived an assassination attempt in Tehran in 2010, defended the performance of the security-intelligence apparatus, saying they had managed to prevent previous assassination attempts against Fakhrizadeh and several others.<\/p>\n
“Twelve years ago a terror squad had seriously come for him and since then he had a team of bodyguards who were with him during [the November 28 attack],” he said.<\/p>\n
“But the enemy changes its assassination methods,” Abbassi, the former head of the Atomic Energy Organization, added.<\/p>\n
Fakhrizadeh’s killing comes in the final weeks of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has waged a campaign of “maximum pressure” against the Islamic republic that has devastated its economy.<\/p>\n
In January, the United States used a drone attack to kill Qasem Soleimani, who headed the IRGC’s elite Quds Force. Tehran responded by carrying out a large missile attack against U.S. facilities in Iraq.<\/p>\n
It is still unclear how and when Tehran will respond to Fakhrizadeh’s killing.<\/p>\n
Iranian government officials, including President Hassan Rohani, have warned that the country should not fall into Israel’s trap, which they believe is to provoke Tehran into undermining the chances of diplomacy with the future administration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n
This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The attack that targeted Iran\u2019s top nuclear scientist took place in broad daylight not far from the capital, Tehran. Within a few minutes Mohsen Fakhrizadeh \u2014 who was\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,25,4,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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