An Iran’s English-language Press TV on Monday said that the weapon used in the killing of a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist last week was made in Israel.
The TV claimed that information from an unnamed source confirmed that the weapon collected from the site where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated bears the logo of and specifications of Israel military industry.
Iran’s clerical and military rulers who have blamed Iran’s longtime enemy, Israel, for Fakhrizadeh’s killing, has begun Fakhrizadeh’s burial in a cemetery in northern Tehran on Monday, state TV reported. Iran through her defence minister promised that the Islamic Republic would retaliate for his killing.
‘The weapon collected from the site of the terrorist act (where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated) bears the logo and specifications of the Israeli military industry,’ Press TV said on Monday while citing an unnamed source.
This report has been countered even before it emerged as Israeli intelligence minister Eli Cohen while speaking before the Press TV report, told radio station 103 FM on Monday that he did not know who was responsible.
Fakhrizadeh, who had little public profile in Iran but had been named by Israel as a prime player in what it says is Iran’s nuclear weapons quest, was killed on Friday when he was ambushed on a highway near Tehran and his car sprayed with bullets.
However, Iran’s rulers are aware of daunting military and political difficulties in attacking Israel and are also careful not to raise the threat of a new confrontation with the West and Israel in the remaining weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency. According to observers, such an attack would also complicate any effort by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to revive detente with Tehran after he takes office on Jan. 20.
Tensions have increased between Tehran and Washington since 2018, when Trump exited Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.
In retaliation, Tehran gradually breached the deal’s curbs on its nuclear programme. Biden has said he will return the United States to the deal if Iran resumes compliance.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK