Tehran Mystery: Who killed Iranian nuclear scientist, and why? By Mustapha Ajbaili

An Iranian nuclear scientist was murdered in front of his house in the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday, Iran’s student news agency ISNA reported.

The agency named the scientist as Darioush Rezaie, 35, a university teacher who held a PhD in physics.

“An Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated in front of his house today ... and his wife was also wounded,” the ISNA bulletin said. No other details were immediately available.

Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency, quoting an unnamed police source, said police were investigating the assassination which took place in an eastern Tehran area.

There have been several instances when Iran’s nuclear scientists were targets of assassination or kidnap.

In November 2010, twin blasts in Tehran killed top nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari and wounded another, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani. Tehran then swiftly blamed the CIA and Mossad for the attacks.

In January 2010, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, another Iranian nuclear scientist involved with the SESAME- light for Experimental Sciences and Application in the Middle East - project, was killed in a bomb attack which Tehran blamed on “mercenaries” in the pay of Israel and the United States.

In July 2010, Iranian nuclear researcher Shahram Amiri said after returning to the Islamic republic that he had been held in the United States for more than a year after being “kidnapped” at gunpoint by two Farsi-speaking CIA agents in the Saudi city of Medina.

Iran is at odds with the United States and its allies over its nuclear work, which the West says is a cover to build bombs. Iran denies the allegations.

(Mustapha Ajbaili, Night Editor of Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: [email protected])