Targeted Atom Scientists Had Close Ties to Victim of January Bombing
by HOMYLAFAYETTE
29 Nov 2010 22:18No Comments
Left to right: Majid Shahriari, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, Massoud Alimohammadi
An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and another was slightly injured in separate bomb attacks as they drove to work in Tehran early Monday morning, November 29. Reports of a third explosion in the Mahalati district, northeast Tehran, were
not confirmed by police sources, according to Mehr News.
In both incidents, which took place between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m., motorcyclists attached explosive devices to the victims' cars amid rush hour traffic, before fleeing the scene.
Dr. Majid Shahriari, an elementary particle physicist and a member of the scientific board of Beheshti University, died in the blast that tore through his automobile near the intersection of Imam Ali and Artesh freeways. His wife and driver were wounded in the attack. Artesh Freeway runs south of the Mahalati district and it is unclear whether the sound of the conflagration that killed Shahriari was the source of confusion about a third attack in that district. (See
this map for more geographic detail.)
Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at Beheshti University and an expert in lasers, and his wife were lightly injured in the explosion that blew off the driver's door of their car in a square near Beheshti University in the Velenjak district. They dashed out of their Peugeot seconds before the device exploded, an eyewitness told the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting corporation (IRIB). "I was behind the damaged car. I saw the car stop and the driver jump out. He ran to his wife's side and got her out as well. They were two meters away from the automobile, when it blew up," said the eyewitness to IRIB's Channel 1 news.
Abbas Davani and his wife were treated for their wounds at Taleghani Hospital, less than a mile from the attack, and released shortly before noon.
The public relations office of the greater Tehran police force declared that both spouses of the nuclear scientists also worked for Beheshti University, although it did not explain in what capacity.
General Hossein Sajedinia, commander of greater Tehran's police force, told reporters that no group or individual has taken responsibility for the terrorist acts and that no suspects were in custody. He denied previous reports that a Peugeot 206 had been involved in the attacks and had been pursued and shot at by the police in the vicinity of Beheshti University. However, he attributed the criminal acts to "lackeys of the Zionist regime." Media outlets have echoed such sentiments, adding Great Britain, the United States, and the MKO to the list of suspects.
"Both attacks were carried out by motorcyclists who, according to witnesses, attached the explosive devices to the cars with magnets. The bombs exploded a few seconds later," Sajedinia added. "The protection of professors is the responsibility of the universities and the Defense Ministry. They are the ones who must answer for this."
Another nuclear scientist, Dr. Massoud Alimohammadi,
was killed by a bomb attached to a motorcycle outside his Tehran home on January 12. The device was detonated by remote control as Alimohammadi left for work. The Islamic Republic blamed foreign governments and banned opposition groups for that attack, but Alimohammadi's involvement in the country's nuclear program is far from established and it has been revealed that he was a supporter of Green leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Alimohammadi knew both scientists who were targeted today. Shahriari was a consultant on the
SESAME Project, which stands for Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, an international scientific project under the auspices of UNESCO. Alimohammadi was one of the Islamic Republic's two official representatives on the
project. Dr. Babak Shokri, the other official representative, and Dr. Javad Rahighi, a consultant like Shahriari, are the surviving members of the initial four-man team.
Abbasi Davani and Alimohammadi were both nonresident researchers at the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (Pajouheshgah Daneshhayeh Bonyadi, also known as IPM, which stands for the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics). The two scientists were allegedly colleagues at Imam Hossein University, which is divided into two institutions: one trains officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the other is open to the general public. They have also both been linked to the Institute of Applied Physics (IAP), which reportedly conducts research for the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
Though the evidence for Alimohammadi's and Shahriari's alleged ties to Iran's military nuclear program is tenuous, there were sufficiently compelling indications to place Abbasi Davani under international nonproliferation sanctions as a person "involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities." He appears in Annex I of
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1747, adopted on March 24, 2007. The resolution calls for member states to freeze his assets and exercise vigilance in allowing him to enter or transit through their territories.
Abbasi Davani has been a member of the Revolutionary Guards since 1980 and saw three tours of duty during the Iran-Iraq War, according to Mashregh News. Aty News, close to the regime, reports that he teaches at the
Superior National Defense University. He reportedly runs the physics program at Imam Hossein University, where he works closely with another Guardsman and physicist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi, who is also under U.N. sanctions.
Abbasi Davani was
honored by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at an awards ceremony for 21 top academics in 2007, according to Ebtekar News. This October, he was one of 60 award recipients at a
ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of Beheshti University (formerly National University, or Daneshgaheh Melli). He is identified as a coauthor of two recent articles, "
Implementation of main waveguide cavities of electron linear accelerator using integrated and separable methods and comparing their performance," published in May, and "
Design and construction of pulsed neutron diagnostic system for plasma focus device (SBUPF1)," published in July.
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