By Ladane Nasseri and Ali Sheikholeslami
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed today by a remote-controlled bomb outside his Tehran home. The government and the country’s opposition movement claimed that the professor, Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, was one of their supporters.
The explosive device was planted on a motorcycle in front of Ali-Mohammadi’s home in the Qeytarieh neighborhood, state-run Press TV said. State media said the man was a professor of nuclear physics and a statement published on the presidential Web site accused U.S. elements of being behind the killing.
The opposition Rahesabz Web site identified Ali-Mohammadi as one of their supporters. He campaigned with other academics in favor of Mousavi, a former prime minister who ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed June election, Rahesabz said.
“Signs of evil by the triangle of the Zionist regime, the U.S. and their mercenaries in Iran can be seen in this terrorist incident,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was cited as saying by the state-run Farsnews agency. “Such terrorist acts and the elimination of the country’s nuclear scientists will certainly not halt the scientific and technological process.”
The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, while the Persian Gulf country says it wants the technology for peaceful purposes.
CIA, Mossad
State television identified the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s Mossad as having possible involvement. Separately, Press TV said the killing may be linked to Israel’s opposition to Iran’s nuclear development.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton said Iran’s accusations of U.S. involvement “are absurd.”
Ali-Mohammadi didn’t work for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, according to a statement on the organization’s Web site.
The professor was heading to work at about 7:30 a.m. when the blast took place, Iranian media said. Television footage showed a destroyed motorbike and the body of the dead scientist being taken away.
There have been no arrests in the case, Tehran prosecutor- general Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi told the state-run Iranian Students News Agency.
Fars said the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, a political group that seeks to end Iran’s religious rule, took responsibility for the bombing in a statement. The claim was rejected in a report on Tondar.org, a Web site that is linked with the group.
Loyal to Government
The killing of Ali-Mohammadi, who taught at Tehran University, was “a terrorist act by anti-revolutionary elements,” state television said. He was “a revolutionary,” it said, a term used by the government to describe individuals who are loyal to the country’s Shiite Muslim leadership.
Ali-Mohammadi’s name appears on a list of Iranian academics who supported former prime Minister Mousavi ahead of the June presidential ballot.
Iran has been in political turmoil since Ahmadinejad’s re- election seven months ago, which provoked the biggest street protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He denies allegations by opponents that the vote was rigged.
Anti-government demonstrations flared up again last month in Tehran and other major cities, prompting a crackdown by security forces that authorities said had left eight people dead.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Beirut atlnasseri@bloomberg.net; Ali Sheikholeslami in London atalis2@bloomberg.net.
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