The sons of the murdered Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh said they had revealed new details of the murder of their father in November when he came under fire in an interview broadcast by the Iranian state media on Saturday.
Fakhrizadeh, the scientist who Israel and the US said should lead Iran’s nuclear weapons program, was killed four months ago in an apparent military ambush on the outskirts of Tehran. There were various reports of the details of the attack, including an exploded truck bomb that exploded and armed men opening fire on Fakhrizadeh’s vehicle.
Iran has accused Israel of carrying out the November 27 hit and threatened revenge. Israel has not publicly commented on the allegations that it was responsible.
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In the interview broadcast by Iranian IRIB News for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, Fakhrizadeh’s two sons said their father was driving next to him with his wife – apparently their mother – when he entered Heard a sound that he thought was a flat tire. « When he stopped the car, the gunfire started, » they said, according to a translation of Israel’s Channel 12 news.
The sons, who were not identified by first name on the Channel 12 report, said that Fakhrizadeh was not hit immediately but that his windshield was smashed while driving in an unarmored car. According to an earlier report in the New York Times, Fakhrizadeh’s wife had received shrapnel wounds during the attack.
He was shot once while fleeing to a second car in the convoy, she described. His wife then ran to him before he was fatally hit three more times.
The sons did not appear to be with Fakhrizadeh during the assassination attempt, although some early reports said members of his family were traveling with him.
The new details are largely in line with the report of the event given by the sons in December, but appeared to contradict claims by Iranian officials that Fakhrizadeh was killed by an Israeli-made weapon that was controlled remotely via satellite has been. Critics saw the allegations as a way for the regime to evade responsibility, not prevent the attack and not catch the attackers.
Last month, London’s Jewish Chronicle reported that Fakhrizadeh was murdered by a Mossad team with a 1-ton automated weapon that had been smuggled into Iran in pieces.
The US was not involved in the operation, which may have pushed Iran’s nuclear weapons program back years, the report said.
The team that carried out the hit had over 20 members, both Israeli and Iranian nationals, the Jewish Chronicle reported, citing « intelligence sources ». At least some of these sources were obviously Israeli; One was quoted as saying, « Thank goodness we all got our people out and they didn’t catch anyone. They didn’t even get close. »
It was said that agents were on the ground at the time of the attack operate the gun remotely.
The report alleged that Fakhrizadeh was hit by a shot of 13 bullets from the « hyper-accurate » gun that did not injure his wife or 12 bodyguards who were traveling with him . However, some of the conflicting reports of the assassination at the time claimed that several bodyguards of Fakhrizadeh were also killed in the attack.
The gun was mounted on the back of a Nissan truck and detonated to destroy evidence after the assassination the report said. « The bespoke weapon, which was remotely controlled by agents on the ground as they watched the target, was so heavy because it contained a bomb that destroyed the evidence after the murder, » she added.
The murder occurred after months of mysterious explosions in Iran, including an explosion and fire that crippled an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at Natanz’s uranium enrichment facility, which is widely believed to be an act of sabotage allegedly carried out by Israel.
Israel has been suspected of carrying out a series of targeted murders of Iranian nuclear scientists almost a decade ago, allegedly to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.
Fakhrizadeh was appointed director of the Iranian nuclear weapons project by Netanyahu in 2018. Then, when Netanyahu revealed that Israel had removed a huge archive of Iranian material from a warehouse in Tehran, detailed with its nuclear weapons program, he said, « Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh. »
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