America's "No, We Didn't Do This. Go Ask MOSSAD" - Iranian nuclear scientist killed

AP
Iranian security forces stand guard around the site of the deadly bomb attack.

 An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed Wednesday when two men on a motorcycle attached a bomb to his car and blew it up outside a university campus in east Tehran, leading the Islamic Republic to immediately blame the US and Israel. The pair made their escape. Prof. Ahmadi-Roshan was the fourth Iranian nuclear scientist to be mysteriously assassinated in Tehran in two years. The same method of operation was used in a similar operation last year. Iran has blamed them all on Israel.

Later Wednesday, Washington denied any involvement in the attack. "The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this," said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, according to AFP. "We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this."
At the same time, Tehran vowed the assault would not stop Iran from making "progress" in its nuclear activities, which have led to a tense international standoff.

EPA

Dead: Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan.

Iran's parliament erupted with yells of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" following the assassination of Professor Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, AFP reported.
Roshan, a 32-year-old nuclear scientist who was a deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was in a Peugot 405 with two passengers at the time of the explosion, the Fars news agency reported.
Iranian officials noted the assassination method -- two men on a motorbike attaching a magnetic bomb to the target's vehicle -- was similar to that used in the killings of three other scientists over the past two years, AFP said.

Roshan died immediately in the blast. One of the passengers later died in the hospital, the Mehr news agency reported, and the third person was hospitalized.
The Islamic regime immediately pointed the finger at the US and Israel.

"This terrorist act was carried out by agents of the Zionist regime [Israel] and by those who claim to be combating terrorism [the US] with the aim of stopping our scientists from serving" Iran, Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told state TV.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said, "We've seen the reports of the death of the Iranian scientist as the result of an apparent bombing. We condemn any assassination or attack on an innocent person, and we express our sympathies to the family," FOX News Channel reported.

Asked to elaborate, she added, "again, you know, I don't think I have anything further to say on this, that we condemn violence of any kind.

"I'm not going to speak to who may or may not have done this, one way or the other. ... I don't think this department has any information further to what I've already said, which is that we condemn the loss of innocent life."

For its part, Tehran immediately warned that Iran would not temper its atomic ambitions.

"They [Israel and the US] should know that Iranian scientists are more determined than ever in striding toward Iran's progress," Rahimi said.

A spokesman for Israel's military said he was "not shedding a tear" about the bombing, which he described as a revenge attack.

"I don't know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I am definitely not shedding a tear," Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai wrote on his official Facebook page.

Roshan was described by the Fars news agency as the deputy director in charge of commerce at the Natanz site in Isfahan province, in central Iran. He was also a university professor and a graduate of the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.

He specialized in making polymeric membranes to separate gas. Iran uses a gas-separation method to enrich its uranium, AFP reported.
Iran's atomic energy organization confirmed that Roshan worked in the nuclear industry, saying in a statement reported by the broadcaster al Alam that "the futile actions by the criminal Israeli regime and America will not disrupt the path the Iranian people have chosen."

Several Iranian nuclear scientists were killed in recent years in attacks that the Islamic Republic blamed on the US and Israel, which suspect Iran's atomic program masks a drive for a weapons capability.

In November 2010, Professor Majid Shahriari was killed in the capital when men on motorcycles attached a bomb to his car, while the current nuclear chief, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, survived a similar assassination attempt on the same day. Another senior Iranian nuclear scientist, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, was killed in a bomb attack in January 2010.

The blast comes at a time of high tension over Iran's nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report that Tehran was working to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists the program is for peaceful purposes only.

Israel has threatened to launch air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, while the US has warned that "all options are on the table."

Tehran has threatened to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz -- a key oil transit route -- over international sanctions against its nuclear program.