Iran's Ministry of Defense has said that one of its top nuclear scientist Mohsin Fakhrizade has been murdered. He was attacked in the city of Absard, adjacent to the capital Tehran.
After the attack, he was taken to a local hospital but his life could not be saved.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif condemned her murder and called it a 'state sponsored terror incident'.
Intelligence agencies of Western countries believe that Mohsin Fakhrizadeh was behind Iran's intelligence program.
Foreign diplomats called him 'the father of the Iranian atomic bomb'. Iran has been saying that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Between 2010 and 2012, four Iranian nuclear scientists were killed and Iran blamed Israel for this.
Iran's Defense Ministry issued a statement saying, "Armed militants targeted the car carrying Mohsin Fakhrizadeh, head of the Department of Research and Innovation of the Ministry of Defense. Fakhrizadeh was badly injured in the clash between the militants and their bodyguards. He went and was taken to a local hospital. Unfortunately, all efforts by the medical team to save him failed. "
According to Iranian news agency Fars, eyewitnesses first heard the sound of explosions and then firing from machine guns. According to the agency, eyewitnesses have also said that 3-4 extremists were killed.
Who was Mohsin Fakhrizadeh?
Mohsin Fakhrizadeh was Iran's foremost nuclear scientist and a senior IRGC official. According to security experts from Western countries, he was very powerful in Iran and he had a major role in Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Israel claimed to have obtained some intelligence documents in the year 2018, according to which Mohsin started Iran's nuclear weapons program.
At the time, Netanyahu told Mohsin Fakhrizadeh in a press conference that he was the principal scientist of Iran's nuclear program, saying, "Remember that name."
In 2015, the New York Times compared Mohsin Fakhrizadeh to J. Robert Openheimer.
Openheimer was the scientist who pioneered the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb during World War II.