Tehran Foils Mossad’s Assassination Plot against Iranian Nuclear Scientists
TEHRAN (FNA)- A plot by the Israeli Mossad agency to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists was defused after security forces arrested 3 agents of the spy agency, a judiciary official said.
"The arrest of these Mossad operatives followed a complicated intelligence operation that lasted eight months," Prosecutor-General of Iran's Sistan and Balouchestan province Mehdi Shamsabadi told reporters on Tuesday.
"Ample evidence has been gathered against them in such a way that they did not even make any objection when a warrant for their arrest was issued," he added.
The official noted that some members of the cell have been arrested in the country’s Southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan while other members and operatives have been detained outside the province by Iran's intelligence forces.
"The defendants have confessed that some of them had been in direct contact with Mossad agents," Shamsabadi emphasized.
He said the case is currently under preliminary investigation and that an indictment would be filed and sent to court soon.
The official did not specify the nationalities of the agents.
In a statement on April 20, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced the arrest of the three Mossad agents in Sistan and Balouchestan.
It said at the time that the spies were involved in disseminating classified information and documents, and noted that the trio had been arrested upon a judicial order.
Iranian nuclear scientists have been the target of the western and Israeli spy agencies' assassination attempts in recent years.
Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's car was targeted by an explosion and machinegun fire in Damavand's Absard 40 kilometers to the East of Tehran on November 27, 2020.
The nuclear scientist and one of his companions were immediately taken to a nearby hospital but he could not be saved.
In June 2012, Iran announced that its intelligence forces had identified and arrested all terrorist elements behind the assassination of the country's nuclear scientists.
"All the elements involved in the assassinations of the country's nuclear scientists have been identified and arrested," Iran's Intelligence Ministry announced in a statement.
"A number of countries, whose territories and facilities had been misused by the Mossad-backed terrorist teams, have provided the Iranian officials with relevant information," the statement added.
"Over the course of the investigations, all other elements behind the assassinations of the Iranian scientists Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, Majid Shahriari and Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan as well as Reza Qashqaei (Roshan's driver) have been apprehended," the statement read.
"Some of the perpetrators of the assassination of Dr. Fereidoun Abbasi, the current head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, are among those arrested," the ministry added.
According to the statement, Iran's Intelligence Ministry had detected some of Mossad's bases within the territories of one of Iran's Western neighbors, which provided training and logistical support to the terrorist networks.
In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, terrorists killed a 32-year-old Iranian scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, and his driver on January 11, 2012.
The blast took place on the second anniversary of the martyrdom of Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, who was also assassinated in a terrorist bomb attack in Tehran in January 2010.
The assassination method used in the bombing was similar to the 2010 terrorist bomb attacks against the then university professor, Fereidoun Abbassi Davani – who became the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization - and his colleague Majid Shahriari. While Abbasi Davani survived the attack, Shahriari was martyred.
Another Iranian scientist, Dariush Rezaeinejad, was also assassinated through the same method on 23 July 2011.
