By Hamid Ahadi

January 19, 2010

Source:

Five days after the assassination of a prominent Iranian physicist in Tehran, the analysis that is provided by official specialists indicates that Israel’s intelligence agencies are possibly the most likely source behind the event. Javan, the official newspaper of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), has released new information about a joint investigation probe among Iran, Israel and Jordan, writing, “While it is true that Dr Ali-Mohammadi did not work for Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, but the national accelerator project that he pursued could have produced significant scientific progress and been considered the foundation and basis for a leap in the nuclear technology.”

IRGC’s newspaper reveals that, “In addition to being a professor at Tehran University, sixty-year old Dr Masoud Ali-Mohammadi was Iran’s representative in the regional synchrotron project, known as Sesame, in the Middle East which is headquartered in Jordan. Because of its importance, Sesame is the only project in which Iran and the Zionist regime, among other countries including Jordan and Turkey, are both members.” The Sesame accelerator was given as a gift by a German to the Middle East while Iran had desired for the project to be headquartered in Iran “but Israel’s obstructionism and Iran’s limitations in this sphere prevented this from happening.”

It is generally believed that any country that acquires the accelerator technology, of the kind pursued by the Sesame project, the country will be in a position to make rapid progress in physics. This means that it will make it possible to proceed with nuclear development without the need to use route procedures.

Javan newspaper has talked with Javad Rahighi, someone who worked with Ali-Mohammadi and has quoted him as saying, “The accelerator has many applications in the field of analyzing material and can be helpful in such fields as nuclear physics, medicine, metallurgy and the education of nuclear physics.”

Foreign sources too have written that Israel was sensitive to Iran’s membership in the Sesame project over the past recent years. Israelis has even made proposals to expel Iran from this international project but were confronted with Ali-Mohammadi’s resistance. Could this issue by itself be sufficient reason to believe that Israel may have been behind the assassination?

Another argument that is made is related to security experts who have said that the details of the assassination conducted last Thursday matched those in which Emad Moghnieh, a Palestinian leader was killed two years ago by Israeli agents. In both cases a bomb that directs its explosive at a sixty degree angle was used. Experts have said that the bomb alone could have killed a hundred people, but its ability to direct is explosive force led to the targeting a single person who was killed.

According to Javan, political sources in Tehran have said that the statement issued by Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency stating that Ali-Mohammadi was not a nuclear researcher, is in many ways correct but the results of the work that he and his colleagues were pursuing regarding the national accelerator project can provide significant progress in the development of nuclear technology in Iran.

Javad Rahighi said, “Accelerator technology is amongst sensitive technologies that only developed countries such as Britain, France and US posses.”

While not much information has been published regarding the Sesame accelerator project, but it is said that Iran had succeeded in making long strides in developing a national accelerator recent months because of Ali-Mohammadi’s work. One report demonstrates that in late 2009 Iran had developed the first low energy accelerator.

IRGC’s newspaper also talked to another member of Iran’s team in the project in Jordan, Arash Kaftoosian and quoted him as saying, “Iran was interested in this project for two reasons: train specialists in the science and technology of accelerators as the current technology, and the use of synchrotron light after the completion of the project. The transfer of this knowhow to Iran was for the purpose of fulfilling the dream of developing a national accelerator in Iran, something that Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency and the IPM institute had been following.

A few days ago the Washington Post quoted the representative of Israel that he had been in indirect contact with Ali-Mohammadi.  Javad Rahimi however refuted any contacts had been made with Israel at the Sesame project. Washington Post also quoted Rahighi as saying, “They (Israelis) were both present in the same room but never had a joint session.”

This newspaper suspects that through Israeli claims that there were contacts between Ali-Mohammadi and Israel, Tel Aviv is trying to say that the Islamic Republic of Iran undertook the assassination because of the scientist’s contacts with Israel.

Specialists have also said the same is true regarding Iran and the IRGC publication. The exposes by this publication can be groundwork for accusing Israel of conducting an assassination attempt inside Iran.

These specialists believe that if it is proven that a group such as the Mujahidin Khalq had a hand in the assassination this Iranian scientist, the Iranian government will not be able to expose this issue because this will prove that internal security in Iran is weak and that this armed opposition group can still carry out serious threats, disproving the claims of the Islamic Republic that the armed group has lost its capital.

Javan also points to another reason why it believes Israel had a hand in the assassination. It writes that political sources in Tehran believe that Israel’s intelligence influence in Jordan, enabled Tel Aviv to learn of the Ali-Mohammadi’s important and sensitive role and work and thus draw up an assassination plot against him.

ON the other hand, there was no other way for Israel to stop Iran’s participation in the project that would facilitate the national accelerator endeavor. IRGC sources claim that since Obama’s administration has not allowed Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, and on the other Israeli strategists have said in recent weeks that they had reached the conclusion that it was not possible to send sabotage teams to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, the only way to harm or suspend Iran’s nuclear programs was to assassinate Iran’s nuclear scientists.

For these reasons, it is possible that the disappearance of an Iranian scientist during a Hajj ceremony in Saudi Arabia, which has thrown Iran-Saudi relations into disarray, and the defection of commander Asghari, who is said to have defected to the West while Iran claims that he was kidnapped by CIA and Mosad agents could all be the pieces of the same project.

But despite these, public opinion in Iran continues to view the Iranian government as the culprit in the assassination, particularly as Iranian security agencies became very sensitive after the assassination and in addition to controlling the victim’s family members and colleagues, have also tried to show him to have been close to the Iranian regime, something that is not easy to believe in Iran.

Keyhan newspaper two days ago suggested that former Majlis MP Ahmad Shirzad, who was Ali-Mohammadi’s classmate and family friend and who revealed the weaknesses of the security agents around Ali-Mohammadi’s funeral, be arrested. If this step is taken, then it will be certain that the Iranian government has had a hand in the assassination of Dr Ali-Mohammadi.